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December 10, 2008

Ashley Wins 1st Round in Benicarlo, Spain

Hola!

I'm trying not to blow away as I write this...it's extremely windy today and cold, but most importantly it's DRY! I woke up early this morning to catch the 1st bus to the courts at 7:45am to be sure that I could warm up on a court before my match. It worked out well because if I would have decided to take the 2nd bus at 8:30am I wouldn't have been able to hit before I played. I ended up going on the court at 10:30 and got a good start. I won the 1st set 6-1 pretty quickly and was playing well. I continued my momentum to go up 5-1 in the 2nd set and took a little nap for 2 games making unforced errors, but got it back together and closed out the match 6-1, 6-3. I played smart by handling the wind well from both ends of the court, I stayed positive throughout the whole match and feel like I played pretty well overall.

I finished my match by noon, but I had to wait until 4:30 to take the first available transportation back to the hotel. So I just hung out at the club, enjoyed the free wireless internet, had lunch, and watched some matches. There weren't any practice courts available to hit on either, but that was ok because I was feeling good after my match anyways. When I got back to the hotel I went with a few of the girls to the supermarket to pick up some things. I also hit the gym for a little bit. Then I waited till it was time for our late Spanish dinner at 9pm.

I play my singles match 2nd up after 10:00am against Diana Arutyunova from Russia. Then we will play doubles NB 3:00pm against two french girls that won their match today pretty handily, so we will need to be prepared and ready for anything. I'll be taking the early bus again tomorrow morning so that I can get a good warm up in before my match. I better get to bed now. Wish me luck! Adios!

Posted by Jack Newman at December 10, 2008 3:09 PM