July 31, 2009

The past two weeks have been super busy. As I mentioned previously, our team traveled to Indiana University last weekend to do some damage in another ITA college tournament. The first night we encountered a few technical difficulties. Annie, Chelcie, and I woke up in a sweat and after trying to turn on the lights, we came to the conclusion the power was out. A storm knocked down the power line and we not only were unable to play tennis due to the downpour, but we had to sit in the dark in our non-air conditioned room with no television or Internet. Luckily, after a few hours of sitting around staring at the wall, the rain stopped and we got on the court and won our matches.

The Illini girls dominated the tournament. Mish and Chelcie fell in the finals of doubles and I unfortunately lost a heartbreaker in the singles final, 11-9 in a third set super tiebreaker. Megan Fudge and her partner, incoming freshman Rachael White, made it to the semifinals in doubles, while Fudge made it to the semifinals in singles as well, but not before the Illini faced-off against teammates. I had the pleasure of playing Chelcie and Mish and Fudge had a grueling three-set match. Overall, we did great! With all the success the Illini have had this summer we are extremely pumped to start the season! The team has gained a lot of confidence and we hope to continue our success through the fall tournament season.

In the meantime, we celebrated a few birthdays. Annie Mac is now a whopping 20 years old and Chelcie aka "Bat" is the big 1-9. I guess I should explain to you how Chelcie got her nickname. While driving around Washington University for a tournament a few weeks ago we got lost (a typical occurrence for our team). We stopped to ask for directions. Chelcie was nominated to get out of the car and look at the campus map. Mind you, Chelcie is visually challenged...in fact I have diagnosed her legally blind. Annie, Mish, and I were hysterical watching Chelcie look at this map. What were we thinking? At that moment it came to us that we should rename Chelcie "Bat." Chelcie was a tad bothered by the new nickname, completely unaware of why we were now calling her BAT. She thought the name came from other jokes we make insinuating she lives under a rock. We explained to her that it is because bats are blind. It actually works that her reasoning fits too!

The summer is unfortunately coming to an end. We continue to train hard and get ready for the upcoming season. We cannot wait! Go Illini!!