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November 14, 2008

Ashley Weinhold's Day 15 & 16 + Championship

Hola!

The last 48 hours has been quite interesting. Yesterday we had big storms in the morning and our power and water went out around 11am. It didn't come back on until around 8:30pm and it gets dark here by 6pm. Supposedly lightening struck the big power lines and knocked out everything on the entire Island. Only a few places in town and around the island had power still. We had no idea how long it was going to be out, we were starting to think a day or two at one point, but luckily it was only 11 hours... which was plenty long enough without light or water. Cristina and I found a store that had light in Porto Cristo and bought lots of candles for the night, but we didn't really even have to use them since it came back on. We're prepared if it happens again though! That's why I didn't write a blog last night...beacuse of the power situation and my computer being dead. Oh and I almost forgot to tell you about our dinner. We ate at one of the few places that was open...it was decorated in teddy bears! They were pinned up all over the walls and on the tables, big and small. It was definitely interesting, but the food turned out to be great and they were really friendly. I had lots of delicious ribs. There were a lot of firsts today...no power or water for a long time and eating at a restaurant where we thought we were at Build-A-Bear haha. It was entertaining all around though.

Now, to update you on my matches yesterday. We were suppose to follow a singles match, but because of the rain they changed the scheudle around without us knowing. I got a knock on my door around 2pm while I was reading my book and nearly about to take a nap. I was told that we were suppose to be on court and start playing, so I had to rush to get changed and hurry to the court. We weren't able to jog around, stretch or warm up according to the umpire because he wanted to get the match started asap. So that was an interesting start to our match...luckily we were more prepared and ready than our opponents and beat them 6-1, 6-3.

We played our semifinal match about 45mins later. It was 6-2, 6-6 in the 2nd set and we had to stop because it was too dark and resume play the next day. We really should have stopped probably 4 games prior, but the ref refused. So we came back today and played around noon. We lost the 2nd set tiebreaker pretty badly 3-7, our confidence took a little hit as well. We were playing a bit timid and weren't really playing well on the same points. After a shaky start for the 3rd set 10 point tiebreaker we fought back and won 11-9...it can't get much closer than that...I was just relieved it was over!

Then we played the finals less than 45mins later and took the 1st set 6-3, but we found ourselves heading for another 3rd set tiebreaker to decide the championship. We lost the 2nd set 5-7 and it was all square. It was a close tiebreaker all the way, but we pulled through and came up with the victory 10-8! It was freezing all day and pretty windy in our final match and it fittingly started raining the last couple games of the match. We won just in time as it started pouring the second I hit the winning drop shot. We all rushed inside after we shook hands. We received flowers and a plaque/frame as well as our prize money (which isn't very much at 10ks and especially in doubles). We took some pictures with everyone and that was it. I'm glad we captured the title and got some hardware as well. It's always a nice feeling finishing off the week a winner, whether it's singles, doubles or both(I wish it turned out that way this week)!

It's just about dinner time now...I think we're going to go out and try to find some good pizza somewhere. I'm starving since I missed lunch while we were playing our doubles matches. It's still raining and has gotten even colder. Our flight isn't until Monday, so we'll probably be doing some sightseeing over the weekend. I'll be in Barcelona for a few days next week training. My 3rd tournament will be the following week near Valencia. I'll keep you guys posted...have a great weekend! Adios!

Posted by Jack Newman at November 14, 2008 2:04 PM