[Slutiana]

Originally Posted by ¤CharlDa¤

I'll be brutally honest: I've never played on real red clay before either I'm training on green clay as its the only thing we have here, and hopefully the transition will be easier than from hard to red clay, which I'm quite sure it will. I'm planning on training on site on the Friday of the sign in to get some red clay timing, but honestly it's more of a nice surprise to me to be playing that tournament, and I'm just hoping I can do a decent showing like my two Futures in March. I'll tell ya on saturday how red clay is, and it also seems to be rainy in Naples, which means even slower and muggier

As far as my game goes, my backhand is definitely my best shot indoors and on hard, as it is incredibly flat and I can hit it pretty much as hard as I can. On the other hand, its not really effective much on clay, and thus my forehand which is a touch more spinny does wonders on clay. I tried to roll my backhand in more today (a la Wozniacki, meaning more margin but also her best 'attacking' shot) and it worked well before the string break. Hopefully this racket won't break til I get to Italy, but I doubt it, I've been breaking them so often recently.

3 more nights and I'm on my way

Wow. Good luck! How did your earlier futures results go?

[Six Feet Under]

The other day I won 5-7 6-4 7-6(2)

My first 3rd set tiebreak

I was down 2 matchpoints at 5-6 as well

But to be honest, we both were playing pretty bad

[S.T.A.R.]

Originally Posted by Marionette

The other day I won 5-7 6-4 7-6(2)

My first 3rd set tiebreak

I was down 2 matchpoints at 5-6 as well

But to be honest, we both were playing pretty bad

[Six Feet Under]

Originally Posted by Mr. Joyful

[Jalil Sherman]

Originally Posted by Aaron.

Maybe I'm not
as good as I think.

noooo don't say that! It wuz just lucky shots and you weren't at your best (lol whatever people say, that mentality actually helps, even if it's not true. U must never doubt yourself!)

[Dealmstr]

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[S.T.A.R.]

Originally Posted by Marionette

I also won today ... 6-0, 6-1, 4 Aces, 1 DF (on MP , I really thought, I could end this match as the first of 2010 without DFs )...

My opponent hadn't played for 7 months and... you could see that. He isn't a bad tennis player but I am better

I bet, in real tennis, Nthama would beat Lulu!

[matthias]

omg - Sunday i have to play with my Team the first Tie of the 2010 Season
and now i found out our Opponents have grey-clay-courts
not the red one we usually play.
It will be the first time i play on this grey stuff.
I played on indoor carpet, and on hardcourts but never on this grey clay.
I hope it isn´t much faster...

finger crossed for me

[S.T.A.R.]

Viel Glück!!

[Six Feet Under]

Originally Posted by Mr. Joyful

I also won today ... 6-0, 6-1, 4 Aces, 1 DF (on MP , I really thought, I could end this match as the first of 2010 without DFs )...

My opponent hadn't played for 7 months and... you could see that. He isn't a bad tennis player but I am better

I bet, in real tennis, Nthama would beat Lulu!

Probably
I just slice drop shot and moonball

[¤CharlDa¤]

Originally Posted by Slutiana

Wow. Good luck! How did your earlier futures results go?

My other two were alright I guess. Faced a muscle monster (who was ranked much higher than me) in Montreal, ended up losing 6-2 6-4 and playing really well, so I was happy.

In Sherbrooke, I faced a guy that was totally beatable (a touch higher ranked), and couldn't put a ball in to save my life. Ended up losing 7-5 6-0.

Sooooo...It is official, I am in the qualies draw of 15k Pozzuoli, facing an unranked 18 year old from Italy in the first round. He is kinda in the same situation I am with his pro experience, so I'm hopeful I can find my clay game and do decent.

I got some practice time earlier with a guy from Japan, wasn't hitting that bad, framing a bit, and not serving well. Red clay wasn't much different than green I found, even though the conditions were muggy. I am happy about that, maybe my training earlier will be of use finally. Playing tomorrow not before 15h00, though weather is gonna be quite bad. I'll have to make it all the way over there from Naples anyways though, so I'll bring a book for sure

[Ryan]

Good luck CharlDa!

[Carotastrophe]

Good Luck against Marco Sanges, Charles David Mathieu Poulin.

[¤CharlDa¤]

Man, you just made me realize how long my name is (though I already knew ). I am on my way to the tournament site, rainy day today so not sure I'll get to play!

[Slutiana]

I played a match for my club against a rival club. I won 6-1 7-6(5) but it was on red clay (well, euro clay), a surface I haven't played on for 3 years. [/facepalm]

It was an epic fail as far as i'm concerned; back 4 years ago I went and trained at a tennis camp in the Czech Republic for a couple of weeks. It was on clay, real and raw clay and they really helped my game on it and by the end of the fortnight I loved sliding and I really had learnt to construct points and I went back the next year and pwned them all.

Today was completely different, i've already bitched in this thread enough about my footwork so i'll just say that I made Serena look like a ballerina today, and i'll leave it like that. What I really struggled with was the bounce - i'm naturally an aggressive player so I started off trying to take the ball early but instead I was taking everything late and it was bouncing up way outside my hitting zone () so after losing game one I tried to wait for the ball to come down... FAIL! I shanked everything and it was just painful. Anyway, it seemed to work and when I did hit the ball somewhere near the strings I just hit the ball heavy and deep straight down the middle and after a few shots I would be able to put the ball away for a winner.

To cut the story short, in set 2 he began to moonball and I just ended up shouting, moaning, throwing my racket, and I also got the yips on the first serve and my hand was shaking (I NEVER get nervous on serve! ). He went a break up but eventually it went to a TB and I just got really pissed off and ballbashed in the tiebreak from start to finish. It definitely relieved some stress.

But I need to start doing some proper footwork drills now and I have begun to remodel my backhand. It is currently a loopy Sharapova-like (motion-wise) stroke but i'm going to simply it and make it closer to someone like Jankovic's motion. I have put myself down for a couple of small tournaments in a month so I need to get to work.

Originally Posted by Destinyhernich

Good Luck against Marco Sanges, Charles David Mathieu Poulin.

Originally Posted by ¤CharlDa¤

Man, you just made me realize how long my name is (though I already knew ). I am on my way to the tournament site, rainy day today so not sure I'll get to play!

Good luck!