Day 15

I ended up losing a really tough match to Tiago Fernandes, the number 14 seed, here at the Australian Open. First set he played lights out and beat me 6-3 and while I broke in the first game of the second I didn't hold the break for long before he broke me back. Finally at 4-4 in the second I broke once again and served out the second set. I followed up the previous break with another one to start the third set but once again this one didn't last long. We would hold serve until 5-6 in the third, when I held a game point. Unfortunately I couldn't convert that, and he went on to take the match 7-5 in the third. He would go on to win the tournament. Perhaps I made some strategical mistakes during the match, but the point was that I played a very solid match and merely a better player beat me on that day. It is hard to regret a match like that where the guy just makes you feel a bit helpless on the court. While my run ended in the round of 16, it was a positive step for me as I had gotten my first two wins at a grand slam and I look forward for more success in the next three and hopefully as a pro. So as I finish my last blog, I want to thank everyone who supported me throughout this trip and next time hopefully I can take home the trophy! Thanks everyone.

Day 14

Today was another good day for me as I was able to pull out another win in the second round. I played a Tunisian player by the name of Slim Hamza who fought to the end. I started off a little shaky, trading breaks and then holds until it was 3-3 in the first when I got on a roll and broke, held, broke to win the first set 6-3. The second set started off well as I gained a 3-0 advantage before things went downhill. I got a little nervous and started to hit the ball shorter which allowed him to take the offense and come back and win 6-4 in the second. In the third I got back to playing my strengths and with a little help from him, I eased to a 6-1 third set win! I was excited to have won, but I know I will have to pick it up tomorrow as I will be playing 24th ranked Tiago Fernandes from Brazil. He is very solid, but I look forward to another great match. For those who want to follow the match on slam tracker, I will be playing at 11 am on court 8. The rest of the day was relaxing as I watched the Roddick-Cilic match which I couldn't believe Roddick lost and then went out and practiced a bit. Overall, it was a successful day for me and I hope to have another one tomorrow!!

Day 12 and 13

Hi everyone. Sorry for not putting up a post yesterday night, but we lost all internet in the room. So as I am sure many of you know on Sunday I won my first round match here at the Australian Open. I beat a young Australian wildcard 6-2 6-1. It was a pretty solid match for me as the kid obviously had a large crowd in support of him. He started off strong as we remained on serve until 2-2 when I finally broke him at love. The balls are quite hard here which makes them shoot through the court really quickly. After consolidating the break to go up 4-2, I won a long game to break him again and serve out the set. Of course when I started the second set, I was a bit nervous because in my other matches in grand slams I had won the first set then choked away the second. Luckily, I broke him early and since I was serving well I felt confident that I could continue to hold. Finally at 5-1 15-40 on his serve I hit one final slice that ended the match. While I was pleased that I had won, I knew that I had to continue my high level of play to go deep in the tournament. So today I got up relatively early and warmed up Nick for his match and then hit once more before I had to play doubles. The format for doubles is best of two sets, no ad scoring and a third set 10 point tiebreak. This makes every point so incredibly valuable. For Micke and I we just couldn't win the important points, going 0 for 6 on deuce points and eventually losing 6-4 6-2. While I was not happy with the loss, I didn't dwell on it too much as I have my second round singles match tomorrow. Vinh and I practiced a bit this afternoon just to make sure that everything is clicking for tomorrow. I play a Tunisian player by the name of Slim Hamza. He has been playing pretty well in recent months and I am looking forward to the match tomorrow. I play at 11 am, so 7 pm eastern time if anyone is interested in following it on slam tracker. Let's hope for another good day tomorrow!

Day 11

Today was the day before the first matches at the 2010 Australian Open Juniors. I woke up early to practice with Nick at 9 am under overcast skies. It was a very solid practice and I was feeling very good for the tournament. After practice I went back to the hotel room where I did some homework for a couple of hours. By 12:30 I was getting hungry and I had to wait until 2 pm before we went over to the tennis center. We arrived and quickly found the players cafe and enjoyed a good lunch of pasta, corn, and some rice. Then we saw the draws which was the usual scramble to find my name. I am on the bottom half of the draw and I play a young Aussie by the name of Jay Andrijic tomorrow. He is solid so it should be a good match and I am really looking forward to it. I will be playing on Court 7 starting at 11 am Australian time if anyone wants to follow on Slam tracker! After examining the draws, Nick and I got a chance to practice with Pat Cash, the famous Aussie player. What an experience! He has the most ridiculous volleys I have ever seen; its like hitting against a wall when he gets up to the net. A lot of Aussie fans were watching and it was really fun. He helped me out a bit on my volleys which I saw improvement on just from his advice. Following practice we headed back to the hotel and went out to dinner at Nando's, the Portuguese Barbeque place we had been to in Traralgon. It was solid as usual and after we headed back to the hotel for the night. I feel pretty confident going into my match tomorrow as I have been doing well for the past six months. The kid is obviously going to play well since he has no pressure but I know that I can get it done, its just about executing. Hopefully I will have some good news for tomorrows post!

Day 10

Today was a day of learning and some relaxation before the junior tournament begins here in Melbourne. We woke up early to go down to Melbourne Park to get our credentials which is what allows us into the tournament. The process went relatively fast and as a result, Vinh, Vinh's friend Pete and I went to this Italian breakfast place that was simply amazing. I had strawberry crepes and a croissant which was very refreshing! We returned to the tennis center to watch some matches. The first match we watched was a doubles match with Rajeev Ram and Eric Butorac taking down the seventh seeded Polish team of Frystenberg and Matkowski. The highlight of the match was the American cheering section that incredibly loud in support of Butorac and Ram. It was an amazing atmosphere for an outside court match. After the doubles match we checked out all the junior arrangements at the tennis center. Our locker rooms and lounge are all under Hisense Arena, the second largest stadium at the Melbourne Park tennis center. At about 1 pm we ate lunch and checked out some more matches, which included Gonzalez against Korolev and a bit of Isner vs. Monfils. Unfortunately, our credentials don't get us into Rod Laver Arena (the biggest stadium) or Hisense Arena; although, we can request tickets. I really like the atmosphere at Melbourne Park; it reminds me a lot of the US Open. At about 4 pm we went out and hit at the practice site for juniors called Albert Park. I hit with Nick and I played very well once again, which is very promising since I will need to be in good form for a deep run here. For dinner, we went back to Federation Square and enjoyed some Italian food which was quite good for the price. Federation Square is the equivalent of the Georgetown area in DC. It has wonderful places to eat, a nice waterfront view and a large screen TV that shows all the action from the Australian Open. It was great, other than the fact that Clijsters got destroyed by Petrova 6-0 6-1. Today is the last day that I can really relax before my Australian Open starts. To prepare for it, Pat Cash (A Wimbledon champion) and Wayne Arthurs (a former top doubles player) have asked Nick and I to play them tomorrow afternoon. It should be a good experience to be around such great champions. By watching the pro matches, you can really learn a lot about how to deal with certain situations that you may face. For example, none of the top pros ever panic nor do they fear the other players. Even if Rafael Nadal is down two sets he continues to force his game on the opponent. Juniors often make the mistake of changing their games when things aren't going well. I will continue to learn about how to mold my game for the highest levels of the pro tour while I am here!

Day 9-Melbourne

Today was a very eventful day for me here in Melbourne. When I woke up I found out that Bernard Tomic, an up and coming but very cocky 17-year old Australian, had lost 6-4 in the fifth to Marin Cilic, the number 14 ranked player in the world! Vinh and I went and got some breakfast from this cafe nearby which was very good. Then we met up with an Australian friend of Vinh's who took us to the practice site which turned out to be very far away. I practiced with Nick for about 2 hours in the morning on the blue plexicushion courts at the Maccabi Tennis Center. The plexicushion courts play a lot like the deco turf courts from the US Open. Nick and I did some footwork and balance drills in the first session, and it turned out to be a very high quality hit. Nick, Vinh, Hector (Nick's coach) and I all walked to a nearby restaurant/casino to eat lunch. The food was actually very tasty and to make things better, bread and water were free!!! Vinh and Hector then tried to figure out how Australian gambling worked, but were unable to solve the mystery. We headed back to the Maccabi Tennis Center for our second session, which would consist of us playing practice sets against the British players down here. In the first set, I played Jack Carpenter who I had lost to at the Eddie Herr International tournament in an extremely bizarre match. In that match I had won the first set 7-5 and was up 5-1 in the second. After some bad calls and a some better play by Jack he brought it back to 5-4 30-30 when the match was stopped for rain. We ended up finishing the match indoors and although I had four match points, he pulled it out in the end. So today in the practice set I focused really hard and played extremely well beating him 6-2 3-0 before we had to stop. Everything was clicking! We then switched and I played Oliver Golding, a young British player, who I had beat at the Orange Bowl 7-5 7-5 in a closely contested match which included me saving about 8 set points in the second set. I played pretty well in this set as well and won 6-4. Overall, it was a good day. We then headed back to the hotel in a taxi which cost about 60 dollars since the practice courts were so far away. After showering, we headed out to dinner with Vinh's friend and enjoyed the scenic view on the Yarra River. Following that we headed to Federation Square where a big screen TV shows all the major action at the Australian Open. It was an amazing atmosphere there! However, the highlight of this very eventful day has to be that we finally figured out how to play Cricket! The Brits explain the gist of the sport and it turns out that it is not that hard! Basically, the pitcher bowls 6 pitches and if it hits the wicket thing, then you are out, or if it hits your leg and it would've hit the wicket. Then if you hit a ball and it is caught, you are also out. So to score, you have to hit the ball and run as fast as you can back and forth between the wickets before they can get the ball back to the wickets. If you hit the ball over the fence (a home run) you get 6 runs and if you hit the ball and it hits the fence then it is 4 runs. All I know is that when you have a pitch called a googaley and the guys wear a vest, you know the sport is quite exotic!

Day 8-Melbourne

Today was a travel day for Vinh and I as we left Traralgon and went over to Melbourne. We got up early and had an hour hit with Nick Chappell. Following the hit there, where it was surprisingly not that windy for once, we watched a bit of the final where Ben Mitchell, an Australian wildcard was crushing Justin Eleveld 6-4 4-0. We left and headed to the train station where we boarded the train to Melbourne's Southern Cross station. After a quick nap on the train and a little bit of Star Trek, we arrived in Melbourne. It was already about 2:30 pm so we headed over to the tournament hotel which is very nice, except for the fact that it is not located near any restaurants really. Vinh and I went out and got lunch at a Chinese place that was one of four restuarants near here. The food was actually pretty good and not excessively expensive! While we were at the Chinese place, Vinh and I played a game in which we had to guess the prize money of certain players. It was actually hard, considering that who would have thought that Santoro has made 8 million dollars and has played since 1989! After eating we explored the area a bit and watched some of a cricket game. I can honestly say that cricket is the SLOWEST sport I have ever seen in my life!!! It is crazy that it takes like 5 minutes in between "bowls" or pitches as we would say in English. I still have no idea how to play but it was interesting to watch these men in vests play an athletic sport. However, although cricket is the second most popular sport in the world after football or soccer whichever you want to call it, it requires much less skill than baseball. Following the cricket game, we went back to the hotel and I did some homework. Also, I checked the Loy Yang website to see the final score only to be thoroughly shocked that Justin Eleveld had won 4-6 7-5 6-1! One of the things I forgot to mention the other day was that everyone at these tournaments has American footballs to warm up their arms. Yet, it is ironic since watching the foreign players such as Liang Chi Huang throw is more painful than getting wisdom teeth pulled! The kid throws the ball like a baseball and can't throw a spiral to save his life. Another funny story from the day was that the Australian Open provided a bus from Traralgon to Melbourne, but we had heard that the bus was a bit unreliable in the past. Sure enough, the bus broke down which delayed the arrival of the majority of the players. Good thing we didn't take the bus!