After a week in Normandy, playing doubles in an ITF with a
new friend and partner, Melvin, it was time for a journey back to Germany, where
I would stay for a night in Cologne before going to the tournament hotel about
30 minutes outside of the city. Our doubles campaign was unfortunately cut
short after an 8-10 loss in the super tiebreak to two young French guys, one of
whom is a future Oregon Duck this fall. In fact, I had played these two French
guys in singles last year, losing to both in close matches. They were tough
competitors, but I expected to get the best of them in doubles. After an
efficient first set, I thought we had all the momentum in the world to continue
our strong play into the second set. Right on queue, my partner started off the
first game with two double faults…. I always choose to serve first in the
second set; this time, we chose to let my lefty partner serve first
because of the low sun in the sky, which would impact my serve and first volley more
than his. An early break, followed by a lost deuce point to get the break back,
led to our opponents capturing the second set with ease. Frustrated, I felt
like my doubles partner was focused more on proving a point to me in the match
than trying to win each and every point. This led to a collection of errors and
missed opportunities for us, particularly in the third set. We did well to go
up 6-4 and then got unlucky with two bad bounces to make it 6-6. After that, my
partner clearly got nervous and played passively, deep behind the baseline, avoiding the net at all costs… not how you’d want to play doubles.
Losing this doubles match was disappointing because it was a
great opportunity for more ATP doubles points, given the opponents and partner I
had drawn. I stayed an extra day in Deauville to practice with Melvin before boarding
the train back to Germany to prepare for my next tournament. An eight-hour day
on the train went quickly as I was occupied gathering information for future
tournaments, reading, watching Netflix, and napping. It was a good journey, aside from the ticket controllers trying to fine me. I had my ticket, but with
bad WiFi and no connection on the train, I couldn’t pull up my valid ticket.
This made things complicated, so they threw me off the train so I could get the
ticket ready for the next train… so annoying. Despite this delay, I made it
safe and sound to Cologne, where I dropped my luggage as soon as I arrived and
headed to a Basic Fit gym nearby. Basic Fit is a chain of gyms across Western Europe that is accessible simply by scanning your phone, and fortunately, my
friend Raghav shared his account information with me while he was away from the
E.U. I completed a body weight workout along with some upper body lifting to
feel good ahead of my practice day to follow.
After closing down the gym on a Friday night, I left Basic
Fit and walked back to my hotel about 30 minutes away. It was so fun to see
everyone out in the streets on a warm May night, having drinks with friends and
hanging around the parks and rivers along with the bars. I certainly was
envious of everyone’s relaxing Friday night, while I was trying to prepare
for my upcoming match on Sunday, following an entire day of sitting on the train
and dragging my heavy luggage across borders. Nights like these make me
appreciate the ability to travel around the world pursuing my passion among the
best 2000 other individuals in the world. A perspective that my high school
coach, Aaron Gross, instilled in me is to continue to remind yourself how cool it
is to be in such a low percentile of the world that competes professionally in
tennis. I appreciate this perspective because of how improbable it would have
seemed to me when I was a kid. I often feel so far from the top of the
professional tennis game because of the ability of the Top 100 pros in
comparison to mine. Occasionally, it’s helpful to reset your perspective and feel
gratitude to be able to compete professionally in tennis at all. This reset can
be necessary when the results aren’t going your way, or you continue to come up
just short in your matches, like I have in the last month or so.
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