Mouratoglou Academy!

Today was a long freaking day. Despite Frank and I not having matches until 19:30 we had to head to the tournament site at 9:40 because another kid was playing at 12:00. And we didn't return home until 01:00 A.M. We got up early, I consider anything before noon early here, and hopped in the car for the 1 hour 45 minute drive to the famous Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in St. Germain de la Grange.

Lounge at Mouratoglou Tennis Academy.

The dress Serena wore during the 2012 Sony Ericsson open. 

Apparently this academy is the best in France and is considered by many to be the Bollettieri of France. The founder and director of the academy, Patrick Mouratoglou, is the current coach of Serena Williams and former coach of many standout professional players including Marcos Baghdatis, Jeremy Chardy, and Grigor Dimitrov, among others. One awesome thing about this club was that they had real trophies that many of the players who trained there had won. He also had racquets and attire worn by the players framed and on display. The coolest display case was one showing a bunch of trophies that Serena won last year. I don't remember all of them but there was the Sony Ericsson Open trophy, the Monte Carlo trophy, the WTA Year End Championships Trophy, the French Open Runner-Up trophy and last but certainly not least, her 2012 Wimbledon Championship trophy. It was very cool to see that in person. Word on the street is that Mr. Mouratoglou is currently getting quite romantic with Serena. That makes me question his decision making. But nonetheless, he's got a cool academy.

Our buddy Juan posing under the trophy case. French Open Runner Up trophy is 3rd from left. 2012 Wimbledon Championship trophy is 2nd from right and far right is WTA Year End Championship trophy.

Close up of Serena's 2012 Wimbledon Championship Trophy! Pretty sweet!

Posing. My beard's coming in nicely.

We spent all morning dillydallying around, doing nothing particularly productive. While our friend Juan was playing (he won his first match quite easily), Frank and and I hopped on a red clay court that was inside a bubble to practice a bit. Although it was quite odd to being playing on red clay indoors, the real downfall was the heat. I was told by a local that today was the hottest day of the year, it was about 32 Celsius, or almost 100 Fahrenheit. Inside the bubble it was at least 15 degrees hotter. We only hit for about 30 minutes and were covered in sweat when we left. We naively commented on happy we were that we weren't playing our matches inside this sweat lodge. When Juan finished we went with him and Romero (his coach) to a mall and grabbed some lunch. Afterwards we went to 'Le Decatholon', a giant sports store, and wandered around for a while. This certainly seemed to be the place were we will be buying our new tent in a couple of days. I also purchased my first European clothing, some awesome sweat-shorts that make me look I grew up on the red clay. At about 15:00 we returned to the club, watched Juan play again (this time he got rolled) and then waited for our matches to go on. Frank went on at about 19:30, and a court finally opened up for me at 20:00. While I had been told Frank was going to play outside, I quickly found out he was playing in the bubble when I was sent to the bubble. The temperature had definitely changed since we'd hit in there earlier, it was about 10 degrees warmer. After the warm up, my shirt was soaked in sweat. I actually took it off and wrung it out, a significant amount of water flowed to the ground, it was gross.

My match was against a French guy ranked 15/1, not too good of a ranking. Because I saw his ranking before we played, I did that thing where you think you're playing someone who's not that good so you don't really focus and you try and coast through the match. In fact, I was far more interested in watching Frankie and his opponent battle it out that focusing on my match. Somehow this didn't cost me in the first set and I cruised to an easy 6-2 opener. The second set was much different. I was even more engaged in Frankie's ongoing war, and my opponent decided to make me pay. He played quickly and more intelligently, jumping to a 5-2 lead. I somehow managed to find my focus and reeled off 4 of the next 5 games to take the second set to a tiebreak, which I won 7-2. Game, set, match 6-2, 7-6. I'm beginning to think that taking too much stock in people's rankings is not such a good idea.

The club was quite big, something like 14 clay courts.

While I was in la-la land Frankie was in battle mode. Playing a super-talented Frenchman, Frankie and this guy consistently had 20 to 30 ball rallies. I swear I watched a rally in the 3rd set that must've been 40 balls, which Frank finally won with a dropper. McGirt! It was really cool to watch Frank really learn from his last match and adopt his style of play. In college Frank never played in matches with long rallies and for him to play a match with so many ridiculous points shows promise for his future here. He played a good first set but got broken at 5-4 to drop the first. In the second he jumped out to a 4-2 lead, got broken, and then the guy held to take it to 4-4. Frank regained composure, held to 5-4, then gritted out a break to take the second 6-4 (I'm actually surprised I remember all this, clearly my focus during my match was in the right place).

The indoor clay, taken during our hit earlier in the day.

Now mind you, this is no normal match. This match was being played in a sauna. Frank went through 3 shirts in the first two sets. Like went through, meaning he had no choice but to change them because they'd become so heavy from all the sweat that they were clinging to. In the early stages of the 3rd you could see sweat ooze out of shoes every time he took a step. It was absurd. People that came in to watch the match immediately left because it was unbearably hot.

The full(ish) moon rising over the bubble as Frank battles late into the night.

In the early stages of the third Frank went down an early break and was serving at 1-3. He played a sloppy first few points and found himself down 15-40. He saved one break point, and had a relatively easy forehand volley to save the 2nd but missed it just long. He's still adapting to closing the net on clay, which is surprisingly difficult given how much you slide around when you try and split step. Down 1-4 things were not looking good. Yet somehow he won the next two games to bring it back to 3-4. Frank played a loose return game to go down 3-5, and found himself serving to stay in the match. He played a great first few points but on two occasions his opponent hit ridiculous on the run pass hand shots with his one-handed backhand (everyone here has one handers, it's odd). Down 30-40 Frank dropped a bomb to save his first match point. At deuce Frank played a brilliant point and had a volley he makes 9 out of 10 times to get the advantage but couldn't make it happen. On match point Frank's opponent hit another beautiful pass that clipped the outside of the life for a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win in a 3 hour marathon. It sucks that he lost, but he really did play fantastic.

Frank balling!

We finally headed for home at 23:00. One very French thing happened on the way home when we stopped at a gas station at about 00:05 (just after midnight). Apparently for security reasons after midnight you can no longer enter the gas station to buy things. Instead, some poor guy stands in a window and you point to what you want while he wanders around the store filling up a shopping cart and then you pay for it through the window. It's wildly inefficient, and considering how safe France seems, makes absolutely no sense. But whatever.

I play my next round tomorrow at 17:30, it will be a tough one. We'll see how it goes.

It's for safety, please.

 -Max