A variety of your favorite American players will be blogging for USTA.com during the 2010 French Open in Paris. Check back daily to see who is blogging next!
With my weight loss, I wasn't sure how I'd play on clay, but I don't feel like I'll lose a match because of lack of fitness.
There are a lot of specialists on clay here. Getting to the quarterfinals or semis for an American man would be a really good result. On clay, there's just tough guy after guy after guy. The clay courters can beat each other up, but some of the Spanish guys have been out here on clay all season, and even though some haven't even made the finals of a Masters Series, they are really rough. This is the two- or three-month period during the year when we get beat up a little, but it's not as if we are not trying.
Sam Querrey and John Isner have been pushing us to step it up. No one wants to be behind anybody, especially guys you see on a daily basis, and they've set the bar extremely high in recent months. You want them to win and do well, but you want to be right there with them and doing even better things. It makes us work a lot harder.
My wife Stacey and my mom came to Paris a few days, and they've already done some damage shopping.
I've won big matches in big clay events before, just not here. I haven't lost in the first round of a clay-court Masters Series in three years, but I haven't won two in a row. It's a matter of putting two of them together here.
PREVIOUS BLOGS:
Melanie Oudin: Saturday, May 22
Andre Agassi: Friday, May 21