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| Australia 2009- BrisbaneIf you have noticed in the past, I usually update when things are going well. Hence the lack of updates in the second half of 2008. Hence the update now...
Since 2008 is behind us, I wont say much about it other than I am glad that its over and that I am looking forward to 2009.
As some of you have see, I qualied at the first event of the year in Brisbane and lost a very tough match yesterday to a a very good opponent/friend Mario Ancic. After almost three hours of slugging it out and no breaks of serve allowed by either one of us, match was decided in the third set tie break where Mario prevailed 8-6. We combined for 44 aces with him serving 23 to my 21-- two points in the end that mattered.
However, before I got to play Mario, I had to win three other matches vs tough opponents also (Guccione, Crugnola and Stoppini). Since it rained on Saturday we also had to make up for a lost day and had to play two matches on Monday to Qualify, which is never easy in Australian weather. Nonetheless, even though I didn't win my match vs Ancic, this tournament was a great preparation for Sydney next week and Australian Open qualies.
Cheers from Brisbane for now.
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| Tokyo"It has been way too long." I dont know the exact count, but I feel that I have started my blog with those words way too many times. Anyone that used to check up on my posts has probably given up by now waiting for my updates, and I dont blame you at all. Even my biggest fans, those being my closest family have given up on asking me when the next update is coming up. Thats never a good sign.
I have decided that its time to start from scratch... in every sense. They will not be long essays, just few words here and there to tell you that I am alive. I also have a camera with me that will be put to use more often that it ever has been before. In the past I had a camera, but always hated being "that guy" asking people to pose for photos. Not really my thing; however i have learned from a really good friend Michael Kosta (www.michaelkosta.com) that "bloggin' ain't easy", even though he makes it super easy. Always puts up a few photos from each one of his shows, being that he is a comedian, puts a few funny captions and its pretty much done. I am going to try and follow his template, but i can't promise you any funny captions.
As I said, no long essays, so I will quickly update you on what has been going on last few months while I was MIA.
I started the summer off playing well, just didn't have anything to show for it on the paper. Finally, while in LA i started catching little momentum. I played two good matches in the qualifyings and drew Dudi Sela in the first round of the Main Draw. Two weeks before that I lost to him 7-5 in the third set, having match points in the second set. However, after watching that match and analyzing it with the help of Craig O'Shannessy (www.thebraingame.net) second time around it was a different story. For my next match I had to face Carlos Moya who I played once before at the 2004 US Open, in a night match on Arthur Ashe Stadium. In a similar way, Craig and I scouted Carlos and prepared a game plan to follow in our match. Everything was going great until my shoulder started acting up towards the end of the second set. With adrenaline still pumping and endorphins freely flowing, shoulder was still functional. After losing the second set, and being down a break in the third set, i was able to come back and beat Carlos in a third set tie break. That win meant a lot, for many reasons. I finally felt like i was playing well leading into the US Open, however next morning when it was time for me to warm up for my match vs. Juan Martin Del Potro, those feeling quickly changed. To put it in mild words, my shoulder was "shot." I had trouble lifting up my arm to put a shirt on, let alone hitting a serve. Few Celebrex pills later, it was starting to feel little bit better and I figured that once the match starts, adrenaline will take over once again and let me play through the pain, however, as the match progressed it only got worse. After i lost 76 62, I flew home that night to Jacksonville to get an MRI evaluation by one of the best radiologists, and a very good tennis players himself, Dr. Mark Frisk.
Initial MRI showed 2-3 millimeter tear, which might not sound that much to anyone, but to put it in perspective, a 5 millimeter tear requires a surgery.
I had 14 days to get ready for the US Open, without hitting any serves. If you know anything about me and my style of play, you will know that without a serve it was going to be a long day on the court playing anyone. Frustrating was an understatement when it comes to me describing my US Open showing. Playing one of the best returners in the world, Robby Ginepri, without a serve was not fun at all! From the first week of the US Open until about 3 days ago, i wasnt able to hit serve. 10 days ago I finally decided to get a cortisone shot to help take down all the inflammation. Ever since the shot, it has been getting progressively better each day. Fortunately, I was able to stay in shape by doing everything else other than serving of course.
Because shoulder has been feeling better, i have decided to make my way over to Tokyo for my next tournament. If the shoulder holds up, i am planning on going to Stockholm, Madrid, Basel and maybe one or two challengers back in States to finish off the year. I am roughly 100 points outside of being back in Top 100 in the ATP Rankings. Hopefully next few tournaments I will be able to cover that and go even further so I can set myself up for the next year.
That is all for now.
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| Liverpool/Wimbledon Qualies Following is a two part post. I wrote the first part while on a three hour train ride from Liverpool to London on Sunday night. Second part was written after my loss in singles. You might notice a different tone between the two… Either way. Read up.
Liverpool
It is never a good feeling when you arrive in another place, let alone another country or continent and your bags are not there to meet you. Its such an empty feeling. What makes things even worse is that all of my tennis gear is in those bags. Casual clothes can be replaced by going to some local store, however, grass court shoes are tough to come by, especially when you have to play the next day and no one else wears a size 13. Thankfully American Airlines came through and delivered all the gear next morning.
Liverpool is a city most famous for the birthplace of a band some of you might have heard of, The Beatles. Personally, I don’t have an extensive collection of their songs, however I do know some of their biggest hits, just like everyone else. Its is also a home to a very successful soccer, or football teams (depending on where you live), Liverpool FC and Everton FC. Manchester is about 45 minutes away from Liverpool and huge rivals Manchester United are located there. I managed not to make a mistake of confusing the two.
As some of you might have seen on the website (www.liverpooltennis.co.uk) this was an exhibition tournament with four different age and gender groups competing. From juniors, to ATP and WTA players, to Men’s and Women’s Legends which included Goran Ivanisevic, Mansour Bahrami, Illie Nastase, Pat Cash, Michael Pernfors, Martina Hingis and Jana Novotna just to name a few. I never got to watch most of these players play in their prime, so this was definitely a treat and honor also to be playing with them in the same event.
Since its an exhibition tournament, atmosphere is little bit more relaxed than it will be at Wimbledon, however it was still very competitive. My other option instead of playing the Liverpool event was to play qualifyings for Queens or Halle ATP events, however since I was in California the week before, it was logistically impossible to make it all the way across and be ready to play on Saturday morning.
With two groups of four, two players made it to the semifinals. I was able to get out of my group and advance. In the semis I beat Ken Skupski, who is a British players, however played his last four years in US at LSU and had a very good career during that time. In the other semi final, Paul Capdeville took down my usual doubles partner, Robert Kendrick. So, for the second time in three days, I had to play Paul and was able to prevail both times. In the finals it was little bit tougher because neither one of us got to warm up properly because of the morning rain. In the end, I was able to get the “W” in the third set Tie Break. That’s the “beauty” of grass court tennis.
After the trophy celebration and few interviews, it was time to pack up my bags and head to the train station where I am taking the train all the way to Wimbledon Village. This is the only country where I enjoy taking a train instead of flying. “Super Chill Ride” as Paulie P would say!
On that note, Wimbledon qualies start tomorrow. Nothing “chill” about that, just pure business. Everyone wants to make it to the AELTC (All England Lawn and Tennis Club) by next Monday. Out of 128 that start off, 16 will be in the “big show.”
Until next post (next Monday), cheers from UK.
AD
ps. In my speech today at the trophy presentation, I forgot to mention all the ball kids that were there this week. I apologize for that and am using this opportunity to thank you for your efforts.
Wimby Qualies
Well, to say that I am disappointed about yesterday’s match, would definitely be an understatement. Nothing seemed to go the right way. Frustrating definitely, but its over with now and not much can be done about it.
In our doubles match we were able to pull out a victory and now we are playing vs. Kendrick/Kuznetsov in the last round of qualies. It definitely will make for a very interesting match since we are all good friends first and foremost. Secondly, I am staying with Robert at one apartment while Brendan (my partner) and Alex (Robert’s partner) are staying together at another place. It should be fun either way.
With this loss in singles here, I failed to defend my second round Main Draw showing from last year, however those were the last points that I had to defend for the rest of the year. From now on, every win counts towards the positive side. So, with a fresh and clean slate, next 6 months should be fun.
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| Fun Times “Time flies when you are having fun.” This saying has been around for a while and gets used quite a bit. In my case I am just using it to describe last couple of months in absolute shortest summary. From surgery, to a wedding to a challenger title and on, it has been quite busy last couple of months. My last post was while in Vegas which was almost 3 months ago. Big tournaments and small tournaments went by and my success was mediocre to say at best. However, on April 28th I decided to have a minor surgical procedure performed, but with hopes for major results. I guess if you are to have some sort of surgery, you might as well do it that way. Name of the procedure was ETS, which is short for Endoscopic Thoracic Symphatectomy. This surgery is used to treat a medical condition that I was born with and have lived for 25 years so far, which is called Hyperhidrosis. It is an extremely bothersome condition which affected me 24/7. Hands being impacted the most by this condition made playing tennis more difficult for me. It makes things little bit harder when you are facing a 140mph serve and you cant really even hold on to a racket. Another problem with this excessive sweating caused for some cramping issues in longer matches. I wont even say anything about the impact it had in social life, because that could be a chapter on its own. For the last 8 years or so I consulted many doctors and specialist hoping to get a solution for this, but was never able to get anything done. Most of them were either not familiar wit this issue or were simply ignorant of it and used some other explanation which when looked at now is borderline laughable. Thanks to the power of internet and obviously my desire to get rid of this, I was able to do research and find all the possible solution for my conditions. I tried absolutely everything but to no avail. Final solution involved going under the knife and definitely had some possible negative side effects, however, it was a risk which I was willing to take. Procedure itself took only 30 minutes or so and I was awake not too long afterwards. Results were noticeable immediately. It was amazing that such a minor procedure was able to solve so many problems for me and give me confidence on and off the court. Since the procedure involved some incisions and deflation of lungs, doctors advised me to take a week or so off to let the scars heal and also for my lungs to try and get back to normal levels. Exactly 7 days later I was on the court in extremely humid conditions at Saddlebrook testing out my “new hands.” In previous years I would require numerous wristbands, towels, grips and different hand drying lotions just to try and hold on to a racket for couple games at a time. All that stuff was thrown out the bag now. It is amazing how much easier tennis is when you can actually hold on to a racket. Now all I have to worry about is actually seeing those 140mph serves.
Ten days after my “life altering” surgery, was my sister’s wedding. Lejla and her now husband Amir (yes…very similar, but not the same!) got married on Mother’s Day Weekend in extremely windy and rainy Chicago. Thankfully wedding was indoors and didn’t have to do too many things outdoors. Everything went according to the plan including the speech at the wedding. I am definitely not planning on posting a video of that, however my good friend Kenny Kim (www.kennykim.com) who also designed my webpage, was there to photograph every moment of the ceremony and as soon as he is done with his work, we will post some of those photos on here also. Bellow are the photos that I took... not to be in any way confused with Kenny's work!
Some people asked why I decided to get this surgery done in the middle of a season and my answer is that first and foremost I wanted to get rid of this condition as soon as possible. I skipped the French Open and few other warm up tournaments because I didn’t have any major points to defend during that time. This way I would recover in time for Wimbledon and Summer Circuit in US, where I am hoping to make a run, especially since I don’t have any points to defend during that time, or for the rest of the year for that matter. I can laugh about it now, but I sarcastically joked about it last year while going through a rough patch of losses, saying that the good thing about not winning any matches now, is that I don’t have to defend any points next year! You try to find something positive in any negative situation.
Since I skipped French Open and was fully recovered I took at trip out to California to play two challenger events, in order to get some matches and hopefully some confidence before going into grass court season. My first event, held at the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA I was able to win the tournament. Surgery definitely proved to be a success!
In my next event in Yuba City, CA, I wasn’t as successful. Playing six matches in Carson took at toll on my shoulder after not playing a tournament for a while. Loss was very disappointing because this was another chance to gain more ranking points before going into Wimbledon and the summer season. However, I wasn’t able to capitalize.
I did however get a chance to go an visit a friend of mine and also a big supporter of Illinois Tennis. Dave Miner and his family own a vinery in nearby Napa Valley, CA and were kind enough to host Tim Smyczek and I for a tour. (Photo is to be inserted here as soon as my camera arrives along with the rest of my bags that were stuck in Chicago!)
Since my flight to England is from LAX, I had one extra day to also practice in Los Angeles with the one and only Pete Sampras. This was an absolute privilege to practice at his private home. We stayed on the court for a while, definitely working up a sweat. I also picked his brain about the upcoming grass court season and his suggestions on how to play on it, since it definitely takes some getting used to. Since I will be back in Los Angeles for the Countrywide Classic, we already tentatively set up some more hits so next time I will not forget my camera to actually take a photo or two.
I am writing this while on the plane on my way to England. Liverpool is my first destination, followed by Wimbledon qualies. Since my ranking dropped, I will have to try and qualify by winning three consecutive matches at the Rohampton Courts. Wimbledon is the only tournament where qualifying matches and main draw matches are played at two completely different sites. It is the only thing other than weather that I don’t like about “Wimby.” You don’t even feel like you are playing the tournament, unless you do qualify. I guess that’s what makes it more rewarding when you do qualify. You get to play at the Big Show!
On that note, see you at Wimbledon.
Cheers!
AD
PS. This week you can follow the results at Liverpool International Website.
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| Andre Agassi College Preparatory SchoolOn my day off I had a privilege of joining Sam Querrey and Jim Thomas in a tour of Andre Agassi's College Preparatory School in Las Vegas. One of the coolest experiences! Read more about it here...
I am back on the court tomorrow vs. Guilermo Canas. I will try not to disappoint...
Cheers from Vegas!
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