Friday 6th May 2011
It was decision day today as Devan had two choices for tournaments to compete in next week and we were only allowed to play one.
When Devan was planning this trip she had two goals in mind; improving her ITF ranking and also competing against other American players so College coaches could gauge her level. As Devan lives in England she doesn’t have a US National Ranking and that makes it difficult for Colleges to offer her a place without knowing how she would compete against the other girls who might be in a similar situation. She was recommended to play some of the USTA “College Bound Super Series” events and one of them fell right in between the ITFs. The problem was we only found out yesterday that she was in the event so today she made the decision to withdraw from the ITF to play the USTA event at The Royal Palm Tennis Club just south of Miami.
After making the necessary arrangements to withdraw from the ITF event we were just about to leave for Miami when we found out it was pouring with rain there so we had a quick change of plan and went over to the ITF site in Plantation to train on their courts for a couple of hours. The day off yesterday had had a positive effect on Devan; she was striking the ball much heavier and finding the depth and width that had been missing last week. After the session we had a quick lunch and then hit the road for the relatively short 40 mile trip down the coast to the tennis club.
We arrived at The Royal Palm Tennis Club just before 3pm and we were both very impressed by the immaculate courts and the 6 week old clubhouse (Devan wasn’t a big fan of the club cat though!!). We trained for just over an hour to get used to the courts and for Devan to play some service points before heading a few miles down the road to our hotel which is just opposite the University of Miami.
It was then laundry duty (which seemed to take forever!) and it was great to finally get everything washed and ready for the start of the second week. It’s always difficult to pack enough kit especially as baggage restrictions on planes are getting tighter and tighter but in America you always know you’ll be able to find somewhere to get the washing done – how clean everything comes out is another matter!
We had a great dinner (which was a little more than a “10 minute walk away” – sorry Devs!) and then on the way back we stopped by the university baseball diamond to watch the team take on Hofstra University from Long Island, New York. It was my first ever live baseball game and even though the U of M Canes were killing their opponents it was still great to watch and we’ll be heading back tomorrow to watch the second game where I’ll definitely be taking some pictures!
Schedule for tomorrow:
Devan McCluskey vs Sarah Monteagudo – NB 2pm
Winner to play (2) Athena Trouillot – NB 5.30pm
