Week 22 Challenger - Nottingham (E42,500) - Grass

steven · Tennis legend

RE: Week 22 Challenger - Nottingham (E42,500) - Grass

steven · Tennis legend

The highly conscientious Josh (no, not Vandenburg's sparring partner Goodall) is already there:

"Barry cowan is here with a camerman."

"Smet has tonsillitis."

"Assume scott sears is nigels son cos he is watching him in british tour." (he is)

"Bit of rain."

Count Zero · Tennis legend

any updates? any play?

JM1138 · Lower Club Player

There wasn't going to be any play before 1, so if it's dried up then play will most likely be starting about now.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

LadyTigress wrote:

Well, it's Tuesday morning. I'm up early to check the weather report...

Up early? Am I reading this correctly? It would appear you have posted this at around 8.15 am.

I had been up washed, visited 3 newsagents til I found one with cashback facilites, bought a treacle pie, gone home, eaten breakfast, made my packed lunch, kised a sleeping wife and child goodbye, commuted for an hour, got very wet on the final walk into work, dried off, made a brew, submitted all last week's timesheets, cleared my email inbox and met with my line manager by then.

And this has been a slow day

I think you made the right choice waiting til tomorow...

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Lol - the life of a sutdent, i remember the days.

cant quite match Jonny, but i have to leave at about 7.30am each day for work.
(and i normally get home at 7.30pm - a nice symmerty cry

)

although Steven probably wins the weirdest working hours award.

-- Edited by Count Zero on Tuesday 1st of June 2010 12:08:05 PM

Vandenburg · Futures level

Count Zero wrote:

Lol - the life of a sutdent, i remember the days.

cant quite match Jonny, but i have to leave at about 7.30am each day for work.
(and i normally get home at 7.30pm - a nice symmerty )

although Steven probably wins the weirdest working hours award.

-- Edited by Count Zero on Tuesday 1st of June 2010 12:08:05 PM

i once considered doing a PHD just so i could spend the rest of my life on btn.

LadyTigress · County player

Oh dear... where's the rain?!

I need there to be rain!!!

Well you don't think posting on bt.net was the first thing I did when I woke up do you? I posted that a while after I'd got up. I woke up/got up around 7:15am.

I really hope there's rain. Darn weather report said heavy and light rain all day, right over Nottingham!

Steven - that would require me digging up Bulgarian websites and sources and interviews that I've long since lost. But he's said it in a few interviews and I think also on his blog, that he really loves the rain and it makes him feel really positive and he feels that he can play well in rainy/showers conditions. He also said that he was really pleased that it rained the morning of his Wimbledon Juniors Final 2008 because he knew it was going to be a good day for him. Let me go see if I can find it... I've got a lot of word documents floating around it might be in one of those...

Ah, here we go. This one was an interview from 2008, Junior French Open:

"I even like the weather its really dark and raining and I love this weather. Its the same as in England and I really like that I cant wait for Wimbledon!"

Interview from 2008 Wimbledon Juniors after he'd won the title:

"Yeah, it was very nice when I woke up. I saw dark weather, raining a bit. I was like, 'Yeah, it's going to be a good day'."

Blog from 2008 USO Juniors:

"But today my favourite weather, rain, arrived and brought me luck. We played indoors and I played top seed Tsung-Hua Yang but I wasn't worried at all. I've never played Yang before but I know his game and he can play really good so I tried to get him down fast and easy like in the first set. But he showed some good stuff back in the second set and I had to fight for another set. I was 2-0 down in the third but I was still pretty confident and thats why I came up with 6 straight games in a row."

In Bulgaria he's also known as "the Rain Man", but I can't pull up the sites right now.

I'm not too sure that fully answers your question, steven. It's a mental thing, I think. He feels comfortable in these kinds of conditions and also it's his favourite weather, so it makes him relax on court and ease into his game. In regards to Grisha saying that it is "good luck" for him, don't underestimate that kind of statement - in my experience, the placebo effect of "lucky" items, routines or events (such as a tennis player might wear a 'lucky' necklace or be in the habit of doing things a certain way if they've won once doing things that way) can boost mental belief and confidence, contributing to a player's game.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Tuesday 1st of June 2010 01:32:31 PM

LadyTigress · County player

Anna Fitzpatrick tweeted a few minutes ago that it's raining and as a result she's still in the tourney and hasn't played her match yet. So even if they're getting some play on, it suggests that the later matches on the schedule, such as Anna's, haven't been played yet at least.

EDIT: ACE Tennis Magazine just tweeted saying that it is still raining and for some reason they are not even having some play on the few indoor courts. biggrin

I'm so happy.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Tuesday 1st of June 2010 02:44:20 PM

LadyTigress · County player

Forgive me for asking this question but, do you guys have/do tourney blogs here? I used to really love doing my tourney blogs but I don't want to do anything "wrong" if you guys don't do that kind of thing here hmm

. I was naturally thinking of doing a bit of one from Nottingham, for folks who can't get up there this year.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

people blog here, normally just goes into the main thread.

i'm generally too lazy to blog about any of my experiences tho :)

LadyTigress · County player

Count Zero wrote:

people blog here, normally just goes into the main thread.

i'm generally too lazy to blog about any of my experiences tho :)

So I'd just post it here. Are photos allowed?

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Yes they are, as long as they are resized to a sensible res.

not sure why you'd listen to me though, They wont even make me a Mod, thats steven's fault, he set up a hate campgain against me you know

LadyTigress · County player

Count Zero wrote:

Yes they are, as long as they are resized to a sensible res.

not sure why you'd listen to me though, They wont even make me a Mod, thats steven's fault, he set up a hate campgain against me you know

biggrin Well, I'll be seeing you folks in Nottingham tomorrow. Pop over and say hi to me.

LadyTigress · County player

Katie O'Brien has just tweeted the following:

Just waited 7.5hrs to get on court, only for rain to suspend play after the warm up. It was a day of nothingness - it sure tested my sanity!

I think we can take that to mean that pretty much today's entire oop is going to be transferred over to tomorrow.

Ah, I can now sleep sound in the knowledge that I didn't miss a thing by choosing to stay home today and go on Wednesday instead. That's a load off my mind.

EDIT: I forgot I had a lecture tomorrow afternoon. I've rescheduled so that I'm going on Thursday instead! I have an appointment on Friday so Thursday is really the only day I can do.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Tuesday 1st of June 2010 07:10:42 PM