Percy896's Tennis Forum

x.doublea

Hi, it's x.doublea again. Once again, thanks for reading yesterday's blog, and I hope you will enjoy this one as well!

I woke up bright and early (again), since I had an early schedualed match against Australian Open finalist PSALT at the Johansson Cup in Stockholm. I went down to the hotel restaurant to have a quick breakfast before heading over the the site. Coincidentally, I passed by PSALT in the elevator. Usually, when we meet at a tournament, we engage in a long conversation, but this time, we both said "Hi" and nothing else, since we would be playing against each other!

After the breakfast, I headed straight to the Johansson Stadium, changed, and went onto a practice court to warm up with my coach. Unfortunately, my forehand wasn't operating as well as it should have been during the warm up, and it went into my match. During the first set of the match, I should have been beaten 6-3 because of my error prone forehand, but fortunately, my serve took me out of trouble. In the tiebreak, PSALT smartly served consistantly to my forehand, and I lost the breaker 7-4. With the first set loss, I rushed my first service game in the second and was broken. Although my forehand was getting better, and I was threatening to break in most of PSALT's service games, I failed to convert, and after 1 hour and 34 minutes, I had lost 7-6, 6-3. Although I certainly could have played better, I felt it wasn't too bad of a match overall, exept my forehand. I will be looking for a better result at the Grosjean Grasscourt Classic in France and at Wimbledon in two days time.

After the match, I ate in the players lounge and told the tournament director that I had enjoyed the hospitality of the tournament that I will be returning here next year. I quickly checked out of the tournament, went to the airport, and went to Lyon, which is close to Switzerland, where the Grosjean Grasscourt Classic would be played.

After arriving in Lyon, I checked into the hotel I was staying at, and I went to the Notre-Dame de Fourvière for a guided tour around the mosaic and stained glass filled basilica. By 4 o'clock, I decided to check into the Lyon Tennis Stadium, where the tournament will be played tomorrow. Since the touranament will not start until Day 22, I was the first player to check in. My coach decided to give me a lot of forehands to work at, since it malfunctioned during my match against PSALT. After forty-five of purely forehands, we worked on my backhand slice approach to the net, since that's vital to my success on grass. We then stopped, since we don't want to burn myself out through to much tennis than needed on one day!

After showering and changing, we took a tournament-courtesy car and drove to downtown Lyon, where we found a nice little traditional French cuisine called 'La Lepidoptera' or 'The Butterfly'. It was very good overall. They had a fine selection of wine, but I wasn't able to experience it, since I don't consume alcohol. However, my coach did, and I had to keep an eye on him in order to prevent him from drinking too much!

After buying a few souvenirs, I returned to my room and turned on the television and watched some Eurosport in French. I actually got to see a few points of my match against PSALT on it, and I have to say, my forehand looked terrible! Anyways, after completing this blog, I'm going to read the newest Sidney Sheldon book, Are you afraid of the dark?, a thriller, for half-an-hour, and I'm going to sleep. Thanks for reading my blog today, and I'll be looking forwards in writing my last blog for now tomorrow! Thanks! Wink

x.doublea

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