Day 1-Traralgon

Hi everyone! My name is Mitchell Frank and I will be blogging from Australia during my three week trip for the Loy Yang Tennis Classic and then the Australian Open Junior Championships. Before anything else, I would like to thank everyone who helped fund my trip to Australia because I wouldn't be here without that help! Just a little background: I am from Annandale, Virginia which is just outside Washington D.C. and I train at the Junior Champions Center in College Park, Maryland. This is my first trip to Australia and hopefully there will be many in the future. I arrived on Tuesday morning with Vinh in Melbourne after about 28 hours of total travel. We stayed overnight in Melbourne and looked around the city just about all day yesterday to stay awake. This is one of the keys to getting adjusted to the 16 hour time difference that my body is not used to. It was quite difficult to stay awake but today I woke up refreshed as could be after a really good night's sleep. After eating breakfast we took a two hour train to the remote city of Traralgon, which is literally in the middle of nowhere. This is where the warm up tournament for the Australian Open will be taking place. While the town is small, the people are extremely friendly but just another downside is that the prices are unreasonably high. It makes for an expensive bill for any meal considering that I eat all the time! After we arrived, we quickly took the shuttle over to the tennis center to practice. I hit with a Brazilian kid for about an hour and a half in very breezy and unseasonably cool weather and later practiced again with the only other American men's player here for about an hour as well. Getting used to the conditions was tough but then again no one plays their best in these windy situations. When we arrived back to the hotel, Vinh and I devoured a dinner of pasta and as a result I was forced to order a pizza as well to calm my hunger. The food was pretty good but it really wasn't up to the 15 dollars that it cost; I mean this is NOT New York City dining here! Now I have to do some homework before I fall asleep, but I will be back tomorrow with the draws for the warm up tournament.