Mariko Fritz-Krockow is a junior transfer from UCLA and a member of the women's tennis team. She provided the Cavalier Daily with her notes from this past weekend's Old Point Invitational held at Old Dominion University.
Thursday October 16, 2003
Our second tournament is under way. At 12:45, eight girls piled up into a charter bus and headed for Newport News. The bus ride was not that long, even though we missed our regular entertainment of the "Lola and Kiekers Show." This is a show that Lori Stern and Kyle Montgomery put on for us over the microphone system in the bus. On this show, the two talk about anything that is worth talking about, covering all the important topics -- guys, relationships that teammates are having or relationships that are potentially happening. It's extremely critical material. But on this trip, neither Kyle nor Lori were able to join us, and we were missing them. Instead, the in-ride entertainment consisted of a showing of "Jurassic Park" on the overhead TV, which still helped the ride pass quickly.
At 4, we were on the courts practicing. We were the first team to arrive so we hit for about an hour or so before leaving the courts at about 6 and headed to Chili's for dinner. After that, we headed to our hotel. We did a little bit of homework, and soon our scheduled times for tomorrow were confirmed. Some of us don't play until 3 p.m. while some of us have to be outside and ready to go at 6:45 a.m. That means that we, the 6:45 people, basically have to be asleep by 10. Oh, that's in 10 min. Well, it's time to get ready for a big, long day tomorrow, which promises many blood baths instigated by us.
Friday October 17, 2003
Lauren, Marta, Dora and I got up at 6 a.m. and don't get home until 9:20 p.m. tonight. It was a long day. At this point, we are all exhausted from sitting in the hot sun all day and from the endless waiting for our matches.
Marta played at 8 a.m. and then got a walkover (her opponent decided to not play the match because she was sick) and so she sat around, watching us until about 7:30 when we left the courts. You can't imagine how tiring that is. Sitting around is actually more tiring then playing matches. I really can't explain it, but if you sit all day, you are exhausted. I, for example, had my first match at 9:30 a.m. and was done by 10:30. I then didn't play again until 3:30! By the time 3:30 rolled around, I just wanted to take a nap. And of course we try to study during these long waits, but there is always something else going on and so homework just seems to drift behind in the list of priorities. Also, no other teams are doing any homework and so the motivation to do work gets even lower.
This tournament is set up in a very unique way. It is flighted, which means that there are a number of different draws in which players are placed. This is pretty normal, but here, there are multiple draws in each flight. For example, there are two "A" flights and two "B" flights. I think they did this because 1) there are so many teams here (maybe close to 20) and 2) coaches always want all their players in the "A" flight. Usually this is a request that doesn't ever come true and only annoys the tournament directors, but here, the coaches can have their wish.
Tennis-wise, it was a pretty good day. Some of us had some tough rounds but we all gave it our best shot and played our hearts out. Although we would like to think that winning is the only important thing, giving it your all is up there, too. But all in all, today was just a long day in which tennis got lost in all the waiting that we did. At least tomorrow looks like it is going to be shorter, but I shouldn't jinx myself. I think the entire team is just happy that we got through today and are back in our hotel room beds now. It was a rough first day.
Saturday October 18, 2003
It is hard to think that today is only our third day here and only our second day playing. I think about the singles match that I played this morning, and it seems like days ago that I played it. Today was scheduled to be only one singles and one doubles. But because of that schedule, tomorrow's schedule includes two singles and two doubles matches. So instead of killing ourselves tomorrow and then having to go back to Charlottesville, the tournament changed the schedule around a little, so that we play two doubles today and then only one tomorrow. This, of course, makes much more sense.
Since there are so many flights, everyone seems to be in different ones, especially in doubles. It's nice because we don't have to play each other. Although there are a lot of flights in the singles draw, we are also a lot of players. Usually, if it is the finals, we won't play each other and just share the title, but if we meet each other anywhere before then, we do have to play. Tomorrow, Lauren and Shannon have to play each other. Of course this is hard because we are trained to hate our opponents. But if your opponent is a teammate and a friend, hating them becomes much harder. At least we know that we are teammates and after the match, everything goes right back to the way it always is.
For dinner, Caroline's parents invited us to their house. It was nice to have a great home-cooked meal again, and that on the road, this is something that never happens. We watched the football game against FSU and enjoyed some time away from the tennis courts. But of course, Kristen and I play at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning so the night was cut short because we had to get back to the hotel and to bed.
Tomorrow is our last day with, we hope, an array of finals and some titles to take home.
Sunday October 19, 2003
Once again our day started at 6 a.m. But this time we met at the bus with packed bags. We headed to the courts where Kristen and I both had 8 a.m. matches, and Lauren and Shannon were playing each other at 9:30. The others wouldn't be playing until later.
Kristen and I both fell in the semi-finals of our singles matches. Caroline got a default from her morning match because her opponent was from Campbell University, and since they are a Baptist school, they don't play on Sundays. Caroline then went on to win her flight. On the doubles side, Dora and Caroline won their flight, as did Lauren and I. So, as promised, there were some titles.
For the first time since I got here, I really got some work done in between my singles and my doubles match. I realized how little work I had done, and also the fact that I had a take-home midterm due Tuesday that I hadn't even started yet. So I managed to seclude myself from the rest of the world and sat down to study. I was surprisingly productive, although the same cannot be said for the rest of the weekend. That tends to be the price that we pay for traveling.
It was definitely nice to be back on the bus and heading toward Charlottesville. Although some of us promised ourselves to get some reading done, motion sickness, tiredness and general non-interest kept us from it. Most of us got a little bit of sleep, while others just stared out of the window. Our feature movie "Bedazzled" was ignored for the most part, because watching it was just way too energy consuming. Exhaustion really does hit you hard when you realize that everything is done.
Although long, it was a good weekend. We came out with some good wins and even better experience. But our weekend is done now and it's back to school and another week of practice before we move on to our next tournament.
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