June 28th 6:15 p.m. - 3rd match

I won my match 6-0,6-1 to qualify into the main draw, but it didn’t come without its frills. It was also a mega humid day here in Hefei. Even before I stepped on court,I felt like I was in a hot shower.

My opponent looked like she was hurting from the time she stepped on court. She huffed and puffed through the first set when I completely dominated her at 6-0. She then almost collapsed into her chair and asked for the trainer.Five minutes of that and a pill later for God knows what, came her Kevin-Spacey-style-Oscar winning performance where she transformed herself into a complete weakling, unable to continue. I thought she was going to give up, but nope. She continues and serves to hold her serve for the first time in the match. She is still hobbling between the points. For me, its highly distracting. I just don’t know what to expect from her. Then I hold serve and go up 2-1 and then she decides to take a bathroom break where she can barely walk without help. She comes back and puts up a spirited effort and those 2 games were the longest in the match, but I step up for a4-1 lead. Her theatrics are still not over.She calls for the trainer again. The ref reminds her that she cant call the trainer for the same injury twice. She then feigns some injury to her knee and gets that treated for another 5 min to buy time. I decided she was just delaying the inevitable. Finally I closed out the match at 6-1.

While her stalling and feigning injuries really annoyed me, if I was her coach,I would be quite happy with her. Why- because she did everything within the rules of tennis and took advantage of all the small loopholes to try to change the course of the match. Now the only thing is that if this had been a more close match, it might have altered the outcome of things.

So, 3 matches later-I am finally in the draw.I will play a Chinese 7th seeded player possibly on Wednesday. I have requested for 1 day off, so my body can recover a bit. I try to catch an Indian movie on the net in the evenings and since Yahoo and Google talk work, I am saved. Otherwise it would be difficult to be here without much to do in the evenings.