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March 23, 2009

Ashley Starts 2nd Tournament In Italy

Hey Everyone,

Today was a pretty good day and an interesting one for my doubles partner, Megan Moulton-Levy. I was talking to her coach online last night to find out if they got here okay and everything. He got in yesterday from the States, but Megan was playing a tournament in Egypt last week and we weren’t exactly sure when she was getting in. Her flight was suppose to get in Monday afternoon, but little did she know that the tournament started on Monday unlike a Tuesday start in the U.S. She was on the schedule for singles at 11 and doubles with me 2nd after 1pm and had no idea. Haha. So her coach, Kevin, called her ASAP obviously and she got a flight from Cairo, Egypt at 4:50am getting her to Rome at 7:30am. Then she had to find a way to get to Latina and the tournament site which is quite difficult to find in the middle of nowhere. Thank goodness she was smart taking a taxi instead of the train otherwise she would have never made it (my recommendation by the way). I arrived at the courts around 10:40 and was in relief and excited to see Megan there also, just in time for her match! We jumped on a court and I hit a few balls with her so she could be semi warmed up and awake for her match. She ended up winning 7-6, 7-6. Quite impressive under the circumstances. They gave her two hours before our doubles so we had lunch at the club. Then we worked on a couple doubles things before we went on the court for our match at 4pm. We won our match 6-2, 6-3 fairly comfortably. We were energetic and excited to play. I think we could be a really good team. I’m looking forward to playing more matches together this week and hopefully in the future. I’m sure glad I talked to Kevin last night or else I’d probably be writing about my partner not showing up for our match and getting defaulted haha. I'm glad it didn't turn out that way. Wow, what a day!

I play singles 2nd up after 10:30 tomorrow vs. (3) Zuzana Ondraskova from CZE. I don’t know anything about her game, so I will be focused on playing my A game. I’m going to be intense, dictate, and be aggressive right from the start. She is ranked quite a bit higher than me so really I have nothing to lose, only to gain. We have a day off from doubles tomorrow so maybe Megan and I will practice together in the afternoon after she gets a lot of rest from her crazy travels. I’ll let you know how my match goes tomorrow. Goodnight!

Posted by Jack Newman at March 23, 2009 5:08 PM