Malaysian Open.
I arrived in Malaysia at 9.45pm on Sunday evening after a long flight from Manchester via Dubai. The plane was packed and when I arrived there were alot of checks on swine flu. Got through customs ok which is always a relief. Got my bags and jumped in a taxi for 45mins to the hotel. I'm on my own in a room for the 1st two nights which was nice as I only got in about midnight.I had a great sleep and went to breakfast about 10.15am. Always tough to get up over here with the 7 hours time difference to England. Spent the day reading and doing my tax return.....very boring but needs to be done when things are quiet. Went for lunch and down to the club to practice with Madeline at 3pm. Watched a few qualifying matches and came back to the hotel for dinner. Had a tasty thai for dinner and back to the room before bed.
Slept terrible last night. Jetlag I think and was awake alot during the night. Hopefully i'll be tired enough to sleep through tonight before I play tomorrow. Got up at 9.30am and went to the press conference. Normal speeches and pictures. Came back to the hotel about 12noon and checked into a new twin room. Waiting for my room mate to check in later. To lunch at 1.15pm and then down for practice and watch some of the qualifying matches. After getting back I went to dinner and then to bed about 12.30pm, hoping to sleep better than last night.
Wednesday, slept great and feeling good for my match later. I drew Annie Au from Hong Kong from the qualifiers. I had breakfast about 9.30am and went to practice. Feeling good on court. Came back to shower and go for lunch before heading back down to the courts for my match. My match was scheduled for 4.45pm and I went on court on time. I won the first game easily playing well and hitting the back corners well. I kept the pace high as I know she likes to slow things down. Annie made alot of errors in the first game aswell and I won it 11-4. The 2nd I lost discipline in my game. She played better with less errors and before I knew it she had slotted about 5 drops in. Partly due to my length being short and partly due to her good play. I lost the 2nd 11-3. After the 2nd game Vanessa came to talk to me and just said I need to get my length better. I read my notes and went back on to be more disciplined. It was a close first few points with Annie still attacking alot. I got into my rythm abit though and tried to hit with more pace again, it seemed to work. We had a few tough rallies and then I pulled away and won the 3rd game 11-4. The 4th game I knew I really needed to keep the pace high and the 4th game took the same pattern as the 3rd game and I won it the same score as the 3rd 11-4 to win the match 3-1. I now play Alison Waters on the quarters won beat Samantha Teran 3-1. I got back to the hotal and went for dinner before back to the room and bed about 12.30am.
Thursday, I got up about 9.20am. Still hard to get up in the mornings. I went to breakfast about 9.45am and then back to the room until practice at 11.30am with Kasey Brown who beat Omneya 3-0 yesterday. After a good practice I watched some matches, had lunch and prepared for my match at 5pm. Alison and I went on abit late but I made a great start. Hitting powerfully and straight into the back corners. I won the 1st game 11-2. Alison got alittle more composure in the 2nd and we were pretty even through the 2nd game. I was still playing well but she got a couple of points at the end of the game to win a close game 11-8. The 3rd and 4th I struggled really. She played well and varied her play. I think as I got more tired I struggled to keep the pace as high. I also tried to change things too much, trying to go short when that wasn't what I was doing in the beginning.I lost the 3rd 11-4 and the 4th 11-5. Very disappointing but there were some good positives from the beginning of the match.
Friday I had a practice with Omneya and Jenny and then went shopping. Saturday was similar watching the matches aswell as practicing again with Jenny and then I fly to Singapore on Sunday.