Coach Newman's Corner

« Ashley Getting Ready For 1st Tournament to Start in Italy | Main | Ashley's 1st Rd in Rome-Pomezia »

March 16, 2009

Ashley Starts 1st Tournament in Italy

Ciao!

I’m back at my hotel room relaxing and have a couple hours on my hands before dinner. The restaurant next to our hotel that we all go to doesn’t open for dinner until 8pm. That seems to be the case in a lot of places throughout Europe; I wish it was earlier though. I have a roommate this week now, it’s nice to have some company and it also saves money. I’ve known Karolina Kosinska for awhile and we played doubles together at one of the tournaments in Spain last fall.

This morning I had a really good practice with Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor who I had actually lost to in the finals of my last tournament in Spain. It’s nice to see at least a few familiar faces here this week. I’ve gotten to know a couple other girls since I’ve been here and will be seeing them over the next couple weeks I’m sure. I went on for my doubles around 2pm which wasn’t too late and I had met my partner for the first time about two hours before that. She’s very nice and a good player also. We won our doubles 6-1, 6-4. It wasn’t the most spectacular tennis, but we got through it together. We came up with the shots when we needed to and won a handful of no-ad points. The best point of the match was at 5-4, 30-15 receiving and I had a couple amazing gets nearly diving for each ball and finally/luckily our opponents missed. Then we closed out the match. We will get more comfortable and improve the more we play together throughout the week. I’m looking forward to stepping it up more in our next round which will be on Wednesday against a tougher team. After our doubles I waited for transportation and on the way back to the hotel we stopped at the supermarket. We went to a much bigger market than the one I went to the other day so I got a couple more snacks.

Tomorrow I play my 1st round singles match at 10am vs. (5) Alexia Virgili from Italy. I’m anxious to play and start grinding on the clay. I don’t know anything about my opponent, but just like any other match I’m looking to use my strengths and stay focused on everything that I can control. I’m going to get ready for dinner now…I’m thinking pasta! I’ll let you know how my day goes tomorrow, wish me luck! Ciao :)

Posted by Jack Newman at March 16, 2009 3:33 PM