We Made It!

From left to right: Fercho (coach), Frank, Gregario, and myself

     It's day 2 here in Rouen, France and Frankie and I just got off the red clay, our first time hitting on the stuff. It was interesting to say the least. They teach the split step in America, but it's really not necessary because you can change direction so easily. But here, if you don't split step you're screwed when you try and change direction. I watched Frank play a point where he slid into a beautiful forehand, and when the ball was hit behind him he tried to change direction only to slip and tumble into the dirt. Highly entertaining stuff. We played a couple of practice sets with a 17 year-old Columbian named Daniel and a 18 year-old Argentinian named Gregario. Unfortunately we lost all of our sets, but we kept them competitive and are hitting the ball pretty damn well for our first day on clay. The highlight for me was today was the first time I could hit backhands with relatively no pain, albeit very taped up and with a brace on. But progress is progress. We have another hit set up for 17:45, about 3 hours from now, just to try and get adjusted to the dirt. Then we have our first tournament tomorrow evening in the city of Neufchatel en Bray, I play at 16:30 and Frank at 19:00. So far everything has been relatively smooth, with the only hiccup being we lost our future home (our tent). There's not much of a story there, but I'll start from the beginning of our travels so you can get an idea of how we get here.

Gregario watering the court after we played. You have to water the court every hour or so or else it gets quite dusty.

Me coming off a 6-3 loss to Daniel.

Frank also dropped his set versus Daniel 6-3.

     We left Dallas/Fort Worth International at about 5:30 P.M. and landed in Paris at 9:35 A.M. As our bags came off of the carousel we grabbed our stuff and quickly realized the tent was no longer affixed to my backpack. I guess I didn't tighten the straps enough and it slipped out. Too bad, but not such a big deal. We then hauled our 100+ pound bags of gear onto Parisian trains and buses until we made our way to the city of Rouen, about 90 KM northwest of Paris. When we got there our host for the first week, Gustavo Gomez, was supposed to pick us up but he had to take a group of younger kids to a different tournament and just gave us directions to our flat instead. After navigating the buses we finally made it to our stop only to see a group of tennis players boarding as we were exiting. As we got off they were yelling and pointing something about Gustavo's mother, we didn't seem to share a common language so we didn't really have any idea what was going on. It turns out Gustavo's mother was just about to board the bus the other way and had our key to the flat. Had we not seen the tennis players or her I have no idea what we would've done, it was quite lucky. She showed us to our flat, which is actually an awesome 2 bedroom apartment on floor 14 of some apartment complex. We have a really cool view of the city, a full kitchen, washer/dryer, it really is fantastic. We settled in and then boarded some more buses to the the USCB tennis club. We got a bit lost and ended up walking the last mile or so to the club but it was no big deal. The highlight of this walk was when a group of French boys, probably around 12 years-old or so, walked by holding their crotches and yelling, "Pelotas! Pelotas!" Or something to that degree, our collective French is not so good, but it was absolutely hilarious. When we we got there the guys we'd seen getting on the bus were hitting on the court. These guys turned out to be Daniel, Gregario, and their coach Fercho.

View from our flat. 

Poorly done auto-timed photo

     We were looking forward to playing on the red clay but because we hadn't gotten to the courts until 18:00 they were all full. Instead we were sent inside to what were probably some of the strangest courts I've ever seen. The building was this absolutely beautiful wooden bubble. The outside (I wish I'd taken a picture) was this aged wood that more closely resembled a hunting lodge than a tennis complex. And the inside was much more modern, but still picturesque. Despite those obscurities, the surface was even more bizarre. It resembled the felt you hit golf balls off of at a bad driving range and played incredibly slow. For whatever reason, we played fantastic tennis and hit for about two hours before we headed home. Once home we met up with Gustavo and he formally introduced us to Daniel, Gregario, and a few other players. Also staying in the complex are 8 Italians, a couple of Chinese kids (including the #1 12 year old in Hong Kong, who Gregario said is the best ping-pong player he's ever seen), and a few other folks we haven't met yet. The complex everyone stays in (but us, we're across the street) houses the professional hockey team of Rouen in the winter so there is a world-class gym in the basement, along with some ping pong tables and all sorts of odd stretching machines. It's extremely nice and we're quite happy to be here for the first week. That's all for now, we'll report back with an update on the tournament!

Bizarre indoor surface

Frankie's innovative airplane sleeping technique.
He likes to sleep.
He's actually sleeping right now.

-Max