Percy896's Tennis Forum

x.doublea

Hi, it's x.doublea again. Once again, thanks for reading my blogs, and I hope this one will entertain you to some extent.

I woke up early in my hotel in Stockholm. I'm here because, tomorrow, I will be playing in the Johansson Cup, which is a Teir II grass court event. After eating a quick breakfast, I took a quick look at the city. Stockholm's quite nice, with beautiful scenery while not being too busy nor quite. However, it's important that I practice on the grass for the first time this season, so after just an hour, I headed to the Johansson Stadium, located in the outisde portions of the city.

It's alwaysn nice to be greeted into the stadium with smiles, and that's exactly what I got when I arrived on the site. The organizer had sent a really nice personal escort who showed me to the lockers. So, I got dressed into my tennis clothes, and headed onto a practice court with my coach.

We both decided that, in order for me to have a great grass court season, I had to improve on my serves. So, after a short 15 minute warmup, my coach got me a hopper of balls, and I served for 30 minutes straight, working on my placement, spin, and variance. After seeing noticable improvement in the accuracy, my coach decided that I would also have to work on my return. So, he stood at the service line with the hopper balls, and fired away at me. Although he did ace me a few times, I got my racquet on most of the balls and was able to place the returns where I wanted them to be.

After 15 minutes of this, we decided to play 15 minutes worth of points, since most of the players were still making their way to Stockholm from Paris. It took me a few minutes to get used to the speed and bounce of the court, but I made a quick adjustment in my strokes, and by the end of the 15 minutes, I was basically firing winners of most angles from all areas of the court.

After the practice, I noticed that there happened to be a track facility just across the road from the tennis facility, so my coach and I did some aerobic training- just some distance running and short sprints. Afterwards, we both showered, got dressed into casual clothes, and went to the player's lounge, where they were offering lunch.

I have to say, the lunch there has really improved from last year's tournament. Last year, everything seemed to be cooked in a rush, and we had a few problems with how everything seemed to be half-raw, but this year, they've really improved. I'm thankful!

My coach had to do something, so I decided to visit the historical Nordic Museum, which is dedicated towards Sweden's cultural history and ethnography. The museum is quite exciting, and I learned many things, including tour guides mix up information quite often....

By the time the tour ended, it was already 5 o'clock, so I returned to the Johansson Stadium to check out the draw. I have been drawn to play the fantastic PSALT in the first round. It will be tough, but I think I will have a big chance of advancing. If I do, I would meet World Number 7 Phobe in the quarterfinals.

So, after doing a press conference along with all the other players I went downtown with my coach to eat at a traditional Swedish cuisine. It was an interesting experience, but good one, as the food was great.

We've just returned from dinner, and after competing the writing of this blog, I will simply watch some television (they have one English channel, BBC), which I hear will be doing a special report on J-Man's run at the French Open. So, I'll be looking forwards to that. I'll be sleeping after that, though, since, tomorrow, I want to get my short grass court season on the right note!

Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you've enjoyed it! Wink

x.doublea

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