Road To Success - Megan Moulton-Levy: Walk like an Egyptian.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I was supposed to be in the qualifying, but got into the main draw at the last minute. So I had a few days to get acclimated. The night that I got to Cairo I pulled up to the hotel it looked great. The lobby was sparkling it looked like any other five star hotel that I have stayed in. It was only in the next morning that I really saw what was up! I walked on to my balcony looked to the left and realized that the other wings of the hotel were not finished and there were bulldozers everywhere. The Dusit Thani was no where near being finished, but we stayed there with the construction and all. The club was also beautiful but like everything else in “New Cairo” it seems like it is half done and deserted. The people running the tournament asked with pride “How do you like the tournament?” I just had to lie through my teeth and tell them how great everything was. Apparently I was the only one who noticed that everything was only partially finished!

The practice courts were a bit of a mess. Everyone kept likening them to those yellow bouncy balls that people use to improve their movement. When you bounce it, it can not bounce at all, it can go to the left, to the right and for people of my height it could bounce over their head! Well playing on the practice courts was some what like that. There were rocks in the middle of the courts so if a ball hits one of them who knows what the balls would do.

The bounces were really the least of our concern though. Unlike most clay courts these courts sometimes did not leave a trace of the ball. The lines were also painted on so as soon as you touch them with your foot it rubbed off. By the end of some of the qualifying matches there was no baseline. No ball marks and an invisible line… it was a recipe for disaster!

Because I arrived early I decided that I needed to make a trip to the pyramids. I went with a girl name Nicole Rottman from Austria. We had one driver set up by the PR person at the tournament, but the ITF rep was at the hotel and there was basically a civil war between the two entities as to who was going to take us. It was all about the Benjamin’s though. Both of them just wanted to rip us off as much as possible.

I guess I thought it was going to be just me and the pyramids. The image I had in my head was that is was going to be some magically spiritual experience between the pyramids and me. I mean lets be honest it is major tourist attraction. I was quickly brought back to reality once I saw the masses of people from every where in the world and the Egyptian men trying to make a quick buck off of the all tourists. In perfected English accents they push “Camel ride camel ride?” They almost had me by asking me if all American women were made with such beautiful smiles. I was again jolted back to reality when Nicole said “they are just trying to get your money lets keep walking!” At 19 she is a tough little cookie! Between us I think they only say that to meJ

So now back to tennis or at least I will give you some incite as to what was running through my mind all those days that I had to wait to play. Here is goes. There is nothing stopping me besides my head. If I can find a way to release my body from my mind and use my energy instead of my mind to play tennis I think I would be a lot better off. What I mean by all of is that… I don’t know exactly what I mean. I just wish that I could play tennis without my mind intruding on the party. I want to be in a constant state of “in the zone”. No one thinks when they are in the zone. But how to you get there everyday? How do you not let your mind rain on the parade? That is the question and I guess the ultimate goal. Maybe the best in every sport—Rafa, Roger, Tiger, Jordan—I am sure they have managed to master this. But how do the rest of us do it? I am sure it isn’t a gift that was only given to those few people. We all have it we just need to learn how to access it.

I won a match finally! It could not have come at a better moment. It came at a time when I was at the edge and I needed a little something to hold on to. It was a decent win against a girl that I lost to in juniors eons ago. Anyway it was kind of a crazy match. The wind was blowing and the courts were bad—the resulted in people yelling in their native languages and nasty looks being shot across the court. I won the match 6-4 7-5. I was up 5-2 in the first and was up 5-4 in the second, I just couldn’t close it out….as usual. This time was because I hadn’t won a match in 3 or 4 tournaments. So naturally at crunch time I got tight. After 2.5 hours I finally pulled it off!

My next and final (final because I lost the match) was against the number one seed a young girl from Italy. I lost the match 6-4 6-1 and this score was in not indicative of the match. In 4 different games in the second set I had game points that I did nothing with. Really I played a lot better against this girl. It wasn’t as windy so you could sort have a regular rally. She yelled and threw her racquet, I stayed composed, but in the end she played well when it counted and I didn’t so that is all that really counts. However, I can honestly say that I am getting better at clay!

Laura Sigemund and I were seeded one in doubles. At first I didn’t know how I felt about that because as I have discussed before that means that there is a giant target on our backs. Towards then end of the tournament I started to like it! We won our first match 7-5 6-4. Both us—Laura and I and our opponents—were not really playing the match, we were playing the wind. I was tough to play in. No one was actually hitting their proper stokes we were all massaging the ball just trying to get it in the court. Anything more would have been too much in these conditions.

I don’t know if you guys remember “Come on YETS” aka my doubles partner Laura Sigemund. I talked about her in my blog about the Laguna Nigel tournament. Well she was back at it again with even more intensity this time. Our second round match we played the girl that I lost to in singles—the racquet throwing Italian—and her feisty (also Italian) partner. We could not have been more opposite. We are bouncing in between points, and running around the court screaming “Come on!” and such while they were either giggling or cursing in Italian. There was a really long break point going back and forth. We would close, they would lob and then dip and it went on for every until one of them hit a winner. One of the Italian girls let out a “Come on YETS” I about peed my pants. I wanted to laugh so badly, but I couldn’t we were in the throws of a battle! Anyway I played so poorly the whole match and finally redeemed myself in the tie breaker of the second set. We won 6-2 7-6

Our semifinals match was a doozy. It is not even really worth writing about. The girls we played either didn’t want to be there or had some where else to be because they tanked.

In the finals we played two very experienced players who stayed very composed and could do anything with any ball from the ground. I don’t think we played badly I just think they played better and we got a little emotional. We lost obviously but losing in the finals is better than losing first round. Not the best way to look at the situation, but for now it will do!

After a disappointing loss I laid down to rest my weary body and get ready for a long day travel to Italy when at 11pm my phone rang. It was Kevin he was already in Italy awaiting my arrival at 130pm the next day. He told me I was on the schedule to play in Italy at 11am the next morning and doubles 3rd on. At that moment I was in Cairo in my bed, Kevin was in Rome near to the airport, and I quickly put him on hold and called Natasha in a panic.