Sunday 15th May 2011
It was a short but very productive day today as we completed our final preparations before the Delray Beach ITF main draw starts tomorrow.
We arrived at the Evert Tennis Academy at 9am this morning but couldn’t get into the gym as all the doors were locked so we warmed up on the court. We started with a ten minute run, then went through all of our dynamic stretching and ended the warm up with some tennis football. The other academy players arrived just after 9.30am and we started the session at 9.45am. It followed the same format as yesterday, Mandy took the session and the girls warmed up and then played as many tie breaks as they wanted to until they were happy with their level. Today Devan warmed up with Ana Belmar (she was the girl that Devan played on Tuesday that we didn’t get her name!) and the level was the best she’s found on the trip so far; she was relaxed, very focus and had a plan for each point that she played. The tie break went on for almost 15 minutes and Devan ended up taking it 14-12, not bad against a player ranked 450! We’d only been on court for 45 mins but the whole session was fantastic so we decided to call it a day there. By that time the gym had been opened so all the players went in to cool down and stretch out.
Devan working hard and competing hard this morning
As we were all done by 11.30am it was nice to have a relaxing afternoon which included lunch at Whole Foods (Devan’s favourite by a mile!), some chilling out at the hotel and a chance to get some school work done.
We then headed over to the tournament site at 4pm to sign in and sort out a doubles partner before we took a drive out to the beach to check out the stunning houses and coastline.
Devan's 1st picture on her new phone!
Dinner tonight was on Atlantic Avenue which where it’s all happening in Delray Beach and is the same road that the ATP tournament site is located. There was a great atmosphere tonight as the restaurants were very busy and all of them have tables right on the side of the road – we had some amazing pasta from Vic & Angelo’s and then it was back to the hotel for an early night.
Schedule for tomorrow:
Manoela Chiacchio (BRA) (688) vs Devan McCluskey (USA) (973) – N.B. 11.15am
Devan McCluskey (USA) & Danielle Konotoptseva (GBR) vs TBC – sign in closes at 12pm, matches to follow in the afternoon
