4th July 9 pm - Match update from Fuzhou

I lost a close match today in the 2nd round qualies in Fuzhou. I lost to Jin 4-6,6-0,3-6 with the match lasting 2.5 hrs.
I was surely better prepared for the heat as compared to the last match. My opponent was not the stereo type Chinese player. This girl could slice, come to the net and had a lot of variety. She started the set well,was making me move around with her slice. I was able to raise my game in the 2nd set mainly because I decided to hit the serves harder. I did put up a good fight int he 3rd when I was down 1-3, but could not outlast her and my resolve started to break at 4-3 in the final set. Overall,I felt that my game was on par with these girls and though I never wanted to talk about the "H" word, unfortunately, it did come down to that. The heat did play a huge role and I will need to be in better physical shape to beat the 16-17 year olds in their turf.

Among the 40-50 Chinese girls here, almost 98% of them are huge potential for the next few years. And these are the unranked bunch who are waiting to make it to the next rung. There are already more than a handful of them between 200 and 600 in the world. China will become the next tennis superpower in the women in the next 5 years. I think India and even the USA can take a lot of cues from the Chinese Tennis Federation.

July 2nd 8:45 p.m. - Update from Fuzhou

I am in the City of Fuzhou, which is a seaport in Southern China. My flight into Fuzhou had enough tennis players and so I just tagged along with them from Airport to the hotel. It would surely been a challenge otherwise as the airport is about 40 kms from here and there were no taxis at the airport. Just shuttle buses to the city from which point on, one had to catch taxis onwards to their final destination.

I landed late last night and today was just a practice and sign-in day.The courts are a lot slower than Hefei, but the weather is hotter and more humid. In fact, it was 41 degrees Celsius this morning when we practiced with about 70-80% humidity. It cools down a bit in the evenings due to the sea breeze. I practiced twice today and when I went to sign-in, the same referee from last week seemed quite genial. He even asked me if the Indian Tennis Federation was doing enough to help me with the travel.

One thing I have learned in the past week in China is when a hotel has the word “International” in it, BEWARE!!!! It usually means that they probably don’t speak a word of English and do not conform to international standards. Like my current hotel, people who work at the front desk or the restaurant do not comprehend a word of English. Many of the Chinese players now have become my friends and don’t seem to mind playing the interpreter.

Food is definitely a problem here for me. The free buffet breakfast is, to say the least, “interesting” as they don’t even have bread or cereal. I guess last week’s hotel spoiled us quite a bit since it was an international chain of hotels, almost everyone spoke English and even the restaurant had enough continental cuisine.

The draw came out a few minutes ago and guess what-I have a bye!!!!! So no match for me tomorrow.I guess I will play on Sunday. One more day to get acclimatized to the conditions…