Pro Tennis

 

Well, hello everyone!

Irina here, reporting from right below the border. Day 3 in Guadalajara, Mexico, where the 16th Pan American Games are taking place. 

Today was another successful day in the books. And that's the only way to do it.

The morning started off with my roomie Christina casually saying, "Ah, I'm so hungry," out loud to see whether or not I was awake. Of course, I just looked at her and said, "OK, then let's go eat." 

For breakfast, I was able to continue the Irina specialty of the 5 egg whites omelette, which was amazing. Since I am in Mexico, I had to go ahead and spice it up with some salsa. What can I say? I like to start my day with a kick. 

So, because today was the day before our first matches, we decided we wanted to just do an hour and a half once in the morning. Let's talk about tennis for just a second. So, Christina and I talked a little bit about what we like to do the day before our matches. Going twice that day was unheard of and foreign to us; therefore, we loved having our awesome 'entrenador,' Gully, go ahead and book a court for us in the morning so we can take care of our work early. So yeah, we decided that we would do an extended warm up with a lot of serves and returns at the end of practice, followed by a tiebreaker. So the reason why we wanted to do serves and returns? Well, obviously we have to practice those two very important shots of the game, but with the altitude here in Guadalajra, the starting of a point is super important. The way you start the point can easily set you up for failure or success. Now you may think that that's an obvious statement, but if you think about it, once you get a good return in after a good serve, the point at that point in time can be quite neutral. So making a good serve along with making a good return with this altitude will allow you to get into an offensive position just because of how much faster the ball travels with this altitude. 

Alright, so enough of that. After that, we decided to go a little patriotic. We decided to go watch and support our USA Volleyball team against Peru! It was an absolutely amazing experience! We got there and got some solid seats and were able to watch from the second set and on. And my oh my, were we impressed? The USA girls did not let up AT ALL! We won in three sets (yeah, I said "we"), and it was indeed a really neat experience.

After we saw some serious demolishing, we were able to watch two other teams play till our ride picked us up. Oh yeah, our ride: We have our own designated driver with a van, Juan, that is at our every becking call. And you know what? He's been awesome! We love us some Juan!

Once we got back to the hotel we were able to get some serious chill time before heading to dinner. And you know what, friends? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We decided to go to the same Mexican restaurant that we had been to two nights ago, so it was quite enjoyable. There was a straight up Mariachi band singing and playing at a table right next to us. No joke, they were with that table for a solid hour--- they must have been getting some seriously good tips.

So now off to get some shut eye! I will be the only American playing tennis at the Pan American Games. Ha! Christina and all the boys have a bye. I guess I didn't get the memo.

Not before 6 against a Venezuelan girl. Be there--- well, in spirit!

 

-- Irina

Randomsies

Today was a day of firsts:

So this is the story for the pin:

Argentinian Girl: Irina! Do you have a pin!?
Irina: Aww no! I have an iPhone, sorry!