July 17, 2009

This week was one of recuperation. We were all exhausted after returning from our tournament this past weekend. The whole team, minus Fudge and Tina, departed from Champaign on Friday and drove three hours to the exciting city of St. Louis to play one of the many collegiate ITA summer tournaments. Mish, Chelcie, and Annie, who were passengers in my car, surprised me with a cd tribute to Michael Jackson. His song, "Man in the Mirror," has changed our lives. The drive went by very quickly listening to the beautiful voices of my teammates... or so I'd like to think. If you have ever heard any of the women's tennis team sing, you know that it is probably not music to your ears. I am sure Michelle and Dave can vouch for that.

We arrived in St. Louis around 3:30 p.m. and headed to the courts to play our first doubles match. Luckily, we were able to get our matches in before the rain. However, the next few days we were unable to avoid the hovering clouds. The weather was a tad annoying, but our team dominated the tournament. We all managed to play at least one person on our team. Rachael White (our incoming freshman) teamed with Chelcie to defeat Annie Mac and Stine en route to capturing the doubles title by defeating Bre Smutko (our other incoming freshman) and Mish. After squeezing by a close three-set match against Rachael, I faced another tough opponent...my roommate. Not only is Mish a good competitor, but she also has a way of always making you laugh...even in very serious situations such as a finals match. I somehow managed to pull out another third set tiebreak for the win. It was definitely a nice feeling to win two tiebreakers in one day. My teammates can back me up when I say that tie breakers are not my forte...I am probably 0-80 in practice tie breaks, ha.

All in all, the tournament was a success for our team and we were able to try out some great new doubles pairings. We head to Indiana University next weekend and we all hope to bring the Illini domination to that tournament as well!