Qatar Airways Challenge - India 5-9 July 06
After a long flight via Qatar I arrived into Hyderabad Airport. All the girls were quite tired and we went straight to the hotel. We were staying in The Taj Krishna, one of the nicer hotels of Hyderabad city.
We arrived in time to watch the England v Portugal game which all the English girls were pleased about! Not so pleased by the end of the match though!!! After all the excitement it was to bed on abit of a low.
Myself and Vicky Botwright had flown together a couple of days earlier than most of the other main draw players and so we were sharing a room and practising together for the next few days!
Eventually on the 5th July it was match day. I had drawn Jacklyn Hawkes from New Zealand. It wasn't a great match from me but she played well and had nothing to lose. She seemed to make a tentative start and I took the first game. After she settle I lost my concentration and at this level you can't do that and I was 2-1 down before I knew it. After this point it was a battle and fortunately I managed to win in 5 games. Not the start I wanted but glad to be through to the last 16 where I would play Omneya Abdel Kawy from Egypt.
After the long match against Jacklyn yesterday I felt ok. In practise I was feeling good and when we'd finished it was back to the hotel for some lunch and relaxing! My match was the first on, this is always helpful because you know exactly when you'll be playing. I made a very good start against Omneya and won the first game sticking to my game plan well. After the first Omneya managed to gain some composure and played well moving me around and taking the ball in short. After so many long the rallies where I was doing alot of retrieving it started to take its toll on my legs. I was dissapointed to eventually lose 3-1 but felt I played ok.
Now it's back home for some training before playing my next tournament which will be the British Open in September.