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Melanie Oudin
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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!
Hi everyone.
I've had a rough time on the red clay so far. My first match against Bethanie Mattek-Sands in Rome was awful. She played really well, but I was so off. I was slipping everywhere. It was one of those days where nothing was going in. I was shanking balls everywhere.
Then I drew Vera Zvonareva in Madrid, and it wasn't as bad. I had some chances in the first set at least, even though I lost. I've had problems my whole life on the red clay. Even as a junior, I never did well at the USTA National Clay Courts. Growing up in Atlanta, I only trained on hard courts. Green clay is totally different from red clay, too. I did well at Ponte Vedra Beach and Charleston on green, but on red clay, my footwork really gets to me. The clay is thicker, and I get stuck a lot. Speed is one of the key things to my game, so it makes it hard for me to succeed.
But the more I practice and slide on it, the better I'm getting. I feel like a thousand times better than a month ago. I heard Federer say once that if he didn't grow up on clay that there is no way he would have ever won the French Open. Pete Sampras never won it because he grew up on hard. Learning how to play on red clay takes getting used to because it's much slower. Patience is the key thing.
I'm hitting the ball well, and my coach thinks that playing on red clay and being here for a month and a half will help my game overall because once I get onto the grass and hard courts, I'll know how to construct more points. I get used to the grass quickly because it suits my type of movement better, but on clay you can go side to side, and then you have to decide to do something else. I think in the future that red clay could be a good surface for me because I've always liked it and do like to slide, but now I just haven't played enough on it to be really confident. Plus, this is my first full clay-court season, so it is all about learning.
I've never been away from home this long, but I'd never been to Rome or to Madrid, either, and I did some pretty cool sightseeing. But six weeks away from home is a long time for me. After Roland Garros, I'm going home before I go to play Eastbourne and Wimbledon. I need to see my family. For American players, it just doesn't feel like home in Europe. The food is different, the hotels are different, there's no American TV, people speak different languages... that's why I need to go home, even it's for just a little while.
I play Anabel Media Garrigues of Spain in the first round on Monday, and that's going to be a tough match. She's a veteran clay courter who's been in the top 20 before, and she just reached the semis of Strasbourg. She's grown up on the surface, but I don't feel any pressure. I feel like I've been playing the best since I've been here, so I feel like I have a chance.
Wish me luck!
Melanie
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Andre Agassi: Friday, May 21