Central Bank Texas Open
I arrived in Texas after a long flight to Houston via New York. We're staying in th Best Western Hotel which is nice and we are getting well looked after the club by all the members.Today is the day of the first round. I am playing a qualifier who got drawn as Karen Kronmemeyer from Holland. My match is at 5pm.
I went on court on time. I made an ok start, Karen started well and it was a long first half of the game. Then she hit a few errors and I ran away with the game winning it 9-3. The second I didn't play very well. I hit alot of balls cross court and went short too early. I was 8-2 down but still thought if I started to play better I could win the game. Slowly I crawled my way back and after saving one more game ball I won it 10-8. The third I started off better, I went 5-0 up but again took my foot off the gas and Karen got back to 5-5. I pulled away again to 8-5 and had one matchball before Karen got it back to 8-8. I made another effort and won it 10-8. I was pleased to get off 3-0 and to have won the 2nd from being down but abit disappointed I didn't finish it off abit quicker in the 3rd. It was abit patchy from me but Karen played well and i'm now looking forward to my match against Sharon Wee tomorrow at 6pm.
I practiced with Dominique this morning which went well and we went for lunch with one of the members from the club which was great. I chilled in the room watched T.V and went down to the club for my match at 6pm. I made a really good start and won the 1st game 9-0. I went about 5-0 up in the second and started to feel Sharon get alittle edgy in her play maybe thinking about losing 9-0 again. I pushed on to try and get the 2-0 lead and managed it with another 9-0. I was playing quite well and Sharon didn't seem to be moving great and was hitting quite loose around the middle which aloud me to take my balls in short quite well. I went on in the 3rd just trying to carry on along the same way and managed to get another 9-0. I know it must have been horrible for Sharon but I just played without thinking too much about the score. Pleased to be through to the semi against Shelley at 5pm tomorrow.
My day today was pretty similar to yesterday. I warmed up well and and went on feeling good. I played ok in the first game. The pace was quite high and i wasn't taking the ball in short very often. I lost it 9-6 after being 6-4 up and was disappointed with that. I came back on for the second and Shelley played really well. She moved me around got a couple of lucky bounces and before I knew it i'd lost 9-1. Facing a 3-0 defeat I was feeling pretty mad because I know with the way i've been playing a didn't deserve that. I came on upped my movement and my racket head speed and showed my shots abit more. I won that game 9-0. Feeling like that worked really well I went on and tried to do the same again. My short shots were becoming alot more effective and I won the 4th 9-2. After coming all the way back I didn't want to lose now and made one big last effort to get a good lead in the 5th. Luckily I got to 5-0 quickly, she got 2 points back and then I stretched to a 8-2 lead. I maaged to close it out on my second matchball and was really pleased with my come back. The match wasn't too long considering it was a five setter and so i'm looking forward to playing Natalie Grainger who beat Isabelle 3-0 in the other semi final.
I got up the day of the final and was feeling good. My match with Shelley hadn't taken too much out of my legs which was good. I did solo the morning of the match and then prepared for the final which was at 1pm. I warmed up and was feeling good for the match. I went on and didn't make a great start. Natalie was playing well and moving well. Anything off the wall slightly got hit short with accuracy. She was also hitting with power very well and making it difficult for me to get into a rhythm. I lost the 1st 9-3. The 2nd and 3rd were very similar to each other. I was trying to change my tactics around abit and was up in both games but couldn't quite keep the pressure on for long enough and I lost 9-5, 9-6. The match was a good length and I didn't feel like I played that badly. Few things to change next time. Overall happy with another final and a round past my seeding again. On to Seoul now.