Day 8 - 2nd Week startin'✌🏾☀️🙊

Today it's starting. Start of the 2nd week ☺️🏁.

Because, as mentioned before, evaluations are taking place again today, like every Monday, we have to get up early. The alarm goes off at 6:00 ⏰.

But for that, I'm rewarded with an priceless view 😍💫. And no, it's not a dream, fairy tale, or invented landscape 😯☺️.

Then, off to breakfast. I don't even know if it's always interesting what I eat, but I'll tell anyway. Somehow, it's part of my day.

Today, I had a mini banana 🍌, a hard-boiled egg 🍳 and a bagel with cream cheese. Unfortunately, there is neither any kind of whole-wheat bread nor any toppings other than butter, hot syrup, or jams 🙀. So, cream cheese it is 🤓.

Then, at around 6:45, I go to Court 11 🚋.

When I arrive there with Rica, a friend from the old group from Hong Kong, you can immediately see that 900 people came yesterday 😳. And I was already surprised the week before that there are so many people.

Since I already had evaluations last week, I was sent back to Hisa's place with the rest of the group, which now consisted of only about 6 people 😂. He is a really good coach and also a really nice and friendly person 😊.

After I wanted to put myself back in line after a few forehands and backhands, he told me that he will miss me very much and actually does not want to let me go, but that I am now too good for his group and will be moved up to a higher group. 

Of course, on the one hand, it was great for me to move up, as it shows me that I have definitely improved. On the other hand, I was a little sad that I couldn't train with him anymore 😶.

The higher group is led by Coach Arthem. 

I stayed with him 😊.

Ironically, I am on the same courts as the week before and have almost the same 'side coaches' - the ones who hit the balls back 😄.

After getting my schedule during the evaluations, I had time for breakfast again, as I am still in Group B 😍. I'm glad I'm not in Group A, as Group A starts playing tennis at 7:30 in the morning, so they have lunch really early and physical conditioning afterwards. For me, however, it's a kind of warm-up training since I have it before tennis 😊💪🏽.

Then I went to the cafeteria with Rica and Polina, I already knew her a little bit, but now she is in my group and we get along really well ☺️, so that Polina could have some breakfast 🍰🍽🍌.

At 9:00, the physical conditioning begins. Polina actually didn't want to go because she was too lazy, but I convinced her 😊.

In the new week, the same things are repeated.

We started with stretching. 

First plank. Straight, left, and right.

Then squads, regular lunges, and lunges with a twist.

After that, we continued with running/sprinting and various stretching exercises while walking. 

Today was relatively easy. 

But I also have to say that during the exercises, I really noticed that I have been training non-stop for a whole week, as the exercises are getting easier for me. In between, I had a very long conversation with Natasha, the German-Brazilian American 😂, about this and that 🍍...

So, we went to the familiar courts. After a short instruction from Arthem, for example, that he wants us to do something when we are standing in line for an exercise, like 'shadow' the other person's moves, or when we are sent to the courts, jog there and back 🏃🏼.

We started with the warm-up program. First, angles crosscourt, then approach shots longline, and finally baseline shots crosscourt 🎾.

Today it was time for the forehand again.

Drill 1: 

6 forehands. The coach serves the balls. After each shot, you run back to the center to a cone. The purpose of this simple exercise is for the coach to find out what you need to improve the most. You should then work on it during the week. For me, it's the step after the shot 💃🏼.

Drill 2: 

First alternating 3 forehands crosscourt and 3 inside-outs. Later, 3 forehands longline and inside-ins.

Drill 3:

The skill challenge. Like last Monday, a forehand crosscourt into a target area. Today, I made it to the second-to-last round, but unfortunately got eliminated afterwards 🙆🏼😊.

Drill 4:

Serves. First half-motion within the service box, later full-motion.

Drill 5:

Back and forth play with a partner on half a court. The coaches really emphasized footwork today 😬. My partner was Polina 😇. By the way, she lives in New York, but her parents or part of her family are Russian, hence the spelling of her name 🙃.

After 3 rounds of switching places and some stretching, we're done.

At 12:20, it's time for lunch. There was some kind of noodle casserole and pasta with meat in sauce and so on.... But I somehow had no appetite for anything, so I put together a salad plate from the salad bar 🍆🌽🍠.

At around 1:30, Polina, Rica, and a girl who goes to school here but is also participating in the camp, went to the Wooden Center. That's where the mental coaching takes place at 2:00 💭. 

Rica pulled herself a bottle of Gatorade on the way and Polina and the other girl, whose name I don't know unfortunately 😁🙀🙆🏼, got themselves a smoothie with green tea and orange 🌱🍊 and one with banana, apple, strawberry, and yogurt 🍓🍌🍏.

Today, a very experienced coach did the mental coaching. It was about strategy, which fits the tennis theme. We talked about the fundamentals of the forehand and the topic of movement. And I have to say, the theory helped me a lot, as it's usually explained much more precisely, with 'why?' and 'how?' ☝🏾✍🏾.

Then it's back outside 🎾😊. Our group is actually pretty cool.

I played a match against Polina 💪🏽. And I was so bad today 😂😁. But I didn't get upset, at least almost not, which allowed me to eventually win 6:3 after what felt like 387,000 deuces, ads in and out.

Then, together with a girl from Puerto Rico, I played a tie-break against a French guy and a Chinese guy. We won 11:7, even though the game was relatively embarrassing, as we were leading 10:3 at first and the two of them were able to score 4 points before we made ours.

The mistakes were really unnecessary 😅. 

But oh well, practice is practice and there are days when things don't go so well.

You have to deal with that 😊.

After each match play, there is a free Gatorade protein shake. As I mentioned, I don't like them. But since they keep long enough, I'll take a few of them home 😂.

As Polina and I were on our way to the tram, we met two guys that we know. Leo from Milan 🇮🇹 and Hans Peter, this is really his name, he even has a German surname because his parents are German, but he himself can't speak German, from Colombia.

Hans got himself a small smoothie. Leo is completely crazy and just got himself a small smoothie with chocolate and banana 🍌🍫 and a BIG smoothie with strawberry, banana, and yogurt 🍓🍌.

I have to say that I couldn't even drink half of a small smoothie. And everyone else here says that after a whole small one, you're really full.

So, as the four of us were going to the tram, we passed the Gatorade stand again and Leo actually took another shake and chugged it down 😂😳. I really don't know how the boy does it. 

He looks like a lanky Tarzan 😂.

When we sat in the tram and he finished his first smoothie and the shake and already drank about half of the second smoothie, he even asked me if he could have my shake 😂😂😂. Seriously, I wondered how he does it without having to throw up all day 🙆🏼.

Then we went to dinner. There were noodles again 🍝. That's somehow the last thing I feel like eating today 🙄. I'm being picky today and don't really feel like eating the other things...

So, because I didn't want to force myself to eat anything, I just took some bananas and a little bit of bread in case I get hungry later 🍌🍞🍌.

Now I'm already at the end of the day. The day may not have been the best in terms of sports, but it was really fun 😊.

I am well aware that mistakes are extremely helpful in order to learn or improve at all. That's why I'm grateful for them. I will try to improve all the mistakes that I noticed today in practice tomorrow ☺️.

Also: 'Tennis is all about mental toughness, and you have to keep your head in the game. I make time to relax away from competition pressures, travel and intense training schedules to make sure I'm looking after myself. Taking time out with family and friends helps maintain the work-life balance everyone needs.' - Samantha Stosur

And I'm extremely happy that today I was able to work on my mental fitness, for example, and really noticed how well I have myself under control.

In fact, I just texted my dad the following: 'If I had played against you like this a week ago, the tennis court probably wouldn't have looked like a tennis court after at most 10 minutes. More like a devastated something. And me right in the middle. Full of aggression and anger at myself.' 😅

And exactly this aggression, anger, or self-criticism is so so incredibly wrong in this sport, because in tennis, you need your head almost more than your feet, which, by the way, are even more important than your arms. Without footwork, no matter how good your shot is.