Rising sophomore and All-American Irina Falconi has agreed to blog for RamblinWreck.com this summer. She will keep Yellow Jacket fans up-to-date on her training as she prepares for her second season on the Flats.
June 26, 2009
Entry #1
Ok so here goes my first blog! I’ve never quite done this before so I’m sure it’s going to be fun for me and all the “millions” of tech fans!
Right now I am finishing up my first week in Clearwater Beach with one of my coaches, Jeff Wilson. I am working with 10 kids, ranging from six years old to 17 so it’s definitely a new experience for me. I’ve been playing around four hours a day including workouts with Jeff’s wife, Kim. The place I am staying in is absolutely fantastic! The view and the fully furnished feature is very pleasing to the eye and comforting for the crew.
While here, we’ve done a whole lot with the kids. This past weekend, they had a tournament about fifteen minutes from the site so that was what took up our weekend. Sunday night, having one of the kids in the finals, Kyle Barnes in the Boy’s 14’s, we decided to have pizza on the beach and watch the sunset in the West Florida Coast.
The program that Jeff has really works out beautifully for everyone! The kids are playing at 8:30 in the morning at the TennisSmith Academy program that has a bunch of national and international players with varying skill sets. While they are playing, I’m training with Coach Jeff. These kids are so hard core, they stay out in the 99 degree Florida heat for four hrs! Yesterday after our session, we made plans to go to Busch Gardens and we delivered. I personally am obsessed with roller coasters so it was a great exprience for me. We got very lucky with the fact that no one was there! The lines were non-existant and we were able to stay on rides after because there were so few people. I went on Sheikra four times! Cool thing about that trip was that we got a deal where if we come back in the next seven days, it’ll be for free. So we have plans to come back next Monday to explore the rest of the park! After coming back from the amusement park. Coach Jeff and I decided to hit the courts that are walking distance from our accomodation, to watch the sunset while Coach Jeff schooled me with his dropshots and made me think nothing of mine :'(
Even though I had been playing and working out a lot before I came on this trip, this is honeslty the hardest I have ever worked. I have been working so hard on loading and setting properly, that I’m icing my quad every night before I go to bed so I won’t fall down the stairs the next morning. I’m using all the resources available to prepare for the four week stretch of ITF Pro Circuit tournaments that I will be participating in the whole month of July.
I promise to have some photos for my next entry. I do not have the cable for my camera on this trip.
To end this on a good note, just for the record, I have never heard so much of Dave Matthews Band ever in my life before coming on this trip. Coach Jeff is absolutely addicted to Dave Matthews, and he’s getting me hooked slowly but surely 🙂
