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December 11, 2008

Ashley Moves On To Day 4 In Benicarlo, Spain

Hello everyone!

Today was another very windy, cold, dry, and victorious day. I won my singles match 6-3, 6-0. I didn't play as well as yesterday, but I did handle the wind fairly well again and stayed positive. Even though the 2nd set was 6-0, we had a lot of really long games that kept going back and forth. I'm glad I pulled them out and stayed focus all the way through and closed out the match better than yesterday. I have things from today's match that I will try to improve on tomorrow as well.

Our doubles was interesting...we won 7-5, 6-0 and we were down 0-5 in the 1st set! Our opponents came out on fire and we also lost 2 or 3 of the No-Ad points in the 1st set. Personally, I played the best doubles match I've played from start to finish since I've been here in Spain so I was very happy about that. I was solid all around and confident in my volleys. I was also the team cheerleader because I had to get my partner into the match a little bit especially after a rough start. Once we started our come back we played really well together and took our opponents out of the match. We need to bring the same positive attitude, energy, and game plan into our next matches from the start.

We finished our doubles at 4:25pm which was perfect timing to catch the 4:30 bus! We were really happy about that because we definitely didn't want to sit around and wait for a singles match to finish that had just gone on the court. Once I got back to the hotel I went to the supermarket and pharmacy with my roommate. Then I took a hot bath and had a nice long stretch. I relaxed the rest of the evening and had dinner at the hotel again. The food seems to be getting worse the more days we spend here. I may venture out to a restaurant in town tomorrow night, but only if I have a good day at the courts which gives me a little extra motivation :)

Tomorrow I play singles at 11:00am against Nanuli Pipiya from Russia. I don't know anything about her so I'll be sticking to my same game plan by using my strengths and staying positive. Following my singles I have the doubles semi-final not before 3:00pm against a team from Romania. Wish me luck! Until tomorrow,

Ashley

Posted by Jack Newman at December 11, 2008 3:03 PM