Thursday, November 06, 2003 Our flight left from Charlottesville at 7 a.m., meaning that we had to be at the airport at 6 a.m. and had to be picked up at about 5:30 a.m. From Charlottesville we flew to Pittsburgh and after an almost two-hour layover there, we flew to Indianapolis. And that wasn't our final destination. From there, we drove for about two hours to Champaign, Illinois, to the University of Illinois.
Tomorrow morning is an early morning, but nothing compared to today. We get to sleep in until 6:45 a.m. In any case, matches start tomorrow and all of us are ready to kick some butt.
Friday, November 07, 2003
It's 4 p.m. and I am sitting in my hotel room, showered and all. I even took a half an hour swim in the indoor swimming pool in the hotel lobby. It's so nice to be at the hotel this early. It's also an extreme rarity.
The format of this tournament here is nothing like I have experienced before. The tournament is formatted in what is called a hidden dual. A dual match is what we usually play during the season. We have a line-up with six singles matches and three doubles matches. The team that wins the most matches wins the dual. The doubles only counts as one point though. Since there are three doubles matches playing, the team who wins at least two matches wins the doubles point, so there are seven points to be won. Hidden duals are played in the pre-season, which is right now. But, unlike normal duals, we do not play the same team in singles and doubles on the same day. For example, today we played Illinois in doubles and Notre Dame in singles. It's very odd to be playing two separate teams in one day. I wasn't really thinking about it and wondered why I hadn't seen my singles opponent play doubles.
In general today went well. At No. 1 doubles, Lauren and I won, while our No. 2 team of Shannon and Kristen lost. Our No. 3 doubles, made up of Dora and Caroline, brilliantly came through with a win in a tie-breaker. On the singles side I struggled with my first match at No. 1. To tell you the truth, it was a little nerve-wracking looking up at the court number and seeing that big "1" there. At UCLA I didn't played lower and so I never had that problem. At the No.2 position, Kristen dominated her opponent. Lauren won at No. 3, while Marta lost at No. 4. Caroline pulled though her three set match and came out with a win at No. 5 and Shannon lost at No. 6.
Saturday, November 08, 2003
All in all, today was a very good day. It started out with the team getting to the courts to find that someone had put on Latino music over the tennis court speakers. This instantly called for some complaints, which soon changed into members of the team breaking out salsa and cha-cha moves. Lauren broke out in what looked more like a John Travolta move from "Saturday Night Fever." Nevertheless, it added a little spice to our cold and early morning.
We played Miami in doubles. Unfortunately we got swept. That means that we lost all three matches. Still, No. 2 and No. 3 doubles played well and fought hard. The No. 1 team, fell victim to a small slaughter. Singles went a lot better. We played against our hosts, Illinois. All of us fought hard and all but Kristen and Caroline went to three sets. And out of those four matches, three of us won those third sets. Once again, the one person that lost, was me. But that doesn't matter. We won four out of six singles matches and showed our hosts who was boss.
At 6:30, there was supposed to be a banquet. May I also mention, that it was about 20 degrees outside and that all of us had just come off the courts and so we also had drying sweat on us. It was freezing. After walking around for about 30 minutes, we were all frozen and were huddled up so no heat would escape anyone.
When we finally got to the banquet we got some very good Mexican food. All four teams who are here were supposed to be there, but Miami failed to show up at all. So Notre Dame, Illinois and U.Va. went around introducing ourselves and getting to know each other not as opponents, but actually as individual people. It was a rare treat.
Sunday, November 9, 2003
Today was the last day of our fall season. It's hard to believe that we are now done until January, when our actual season starts. Everything came to a massive halt, but not before the end of today.
But no matter what the results, the entire team really did come out to play this weekend and there is no doubt in my mind that we surprised some teams and their followers.
Now back in Charlottesville, I think the entire team is looking forward to the entire week off that we are now getting. But with our past tournaments and play, I think we deserve some time off.
Read More
You cannot say money is the problem for Virginia football
By Peter Kriebel | 5 hours agoMoney, after all, is just one aspect of a winning program.
West Coast woes strike again as men’s basketball gets hammered by Stanford
By Emory Huffman | 17 hours agoVirginia, once again in a lost season, looked aimless on the floor.
ISTVAN: Tony Bennett left Virginia in a hole
By Ben Istvan | YesterdayHis decision to retire doomed this men's basketball season.
