Dear Friends:

Last Sunday in Paris was an adventure; due to getting lost and all sorts of mix-ups instead of getting into Cherbourg at noon we got in after 7pm after missing our train in Paris by 15 minutes and having to wait 4 hours for the next one. 

Luckily we were not on the schedule to play until Tuesday so we were able to have two practice sessions on Monday and a third Tuesday morning in order to transition from outdoor clay to the fast indoor hard courts in Cherboug.

Cherboug is a pretty coastal city in Normandy full of history.  It is the place where the Allies landed in order to win back France from the Nazis during the Second World War. 

Our hotel was right on the water and a 2 minute walk from the main tennis stadium; as such it was not only comfortable, but very convenient.  There was only one court at the main stadium where all the matches were to take place and so we had to travel 15 minutes by car to the practice site at another club where there were 3 courts of a different surface.  Not ideal, but that was the situation we needed to deal with and we did, as did all the players.  The matches at the main site did not begin until 10am and progressively later as the week wore on, so there were opportunities to play early in the morning, which was great for me; ok for Harsh and a drag for the night owl on our team, Adil Shamasdin.

The French have a reputation of being unfriendly, at least that was the case for me growing up in London.  The English and the French have a history of mutual dislike and hostility; but the experience here, as opposed to Paris, did not bear this out.

Everyone connected to the tournament was extremely friendly, accommodating and extremely helpful.  I have met some wonderful people here and the experience at the hotel with all the staff there has been exactly the same. 

The only untoward episode we had was walking to lunch one day we were stopped by three ‘gendarms’ (police officers) who asked us for our passports and other questions regarding who we were, what we were doing and where we were from.  It was only later I realized that we must been a scary sight for this small town.  Harsh, Adil and I could be perfectly profiled to be terrorists and while Harsh and Adil were quite annoyed by the racial profiling, I was cool with it.  It was no coincidence that soon after Adil shaved his scraggily-looking beard and cleaned up his act a little.  The conversation ended by them telling us that we needed to carry our passports with us at all times, which is pretty ridiculous and which we did not do.

In the first round of the tournament we were given what could be called a favourable draw.  We were drawn against a wild card team.  Usually, the organizing body is given a number of wild cards in both singles and doubles.  These wild cards are given to players whose ranking does not merit a spot in the draw.  Often it is given to young players to give them some experience, but sometimes can be given to aging players who have been very good or other quality players whose ranking may have dropped for a number of different reasons.  Anyway, we were drawn against a team that was not very strong, but made a meal out of the match.  We did not play well and scrapped through in the super-tiebreaker after splitting the first two sets.

In the quarters we were drawn against Arnold Clemand and David Guez from France.  Arnaud was the top seed in the singles and a former top 10 player (now ranked about 65) and the finalist at the Australian Open some years back.  His partner was also a quality player ranked inside the top 150 ATP.  It was an exciting opportunity to play some big time players.  Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective, Guez got hurt in his singles and our opponents had to pull out giving us a walk over into the semis.

In the semi-finals we were drawn against the top seeds in the tournament, Jamie Murray (Andy Murray’s brother and a Grand Slam winner-in mixed doubles at Wimbledon-) AND Jonathan Marray a hard-serving Englishman whom Harsh had played in singles years back.  Harsh had lost to this team 3 weeks ago in Bergamo, Italy and here they were again.

We played a solid match at times and eventually won the match 6-7 (2); 7-6 (5); 10-5.  The match was not without drama.  In the first set there were no service breaks, which is good for us.  As long as we keep holding we will usually do well because we return so well that we will always have chances to break.  And we did have chances to break, but unfortunately were not able to convert any of our break point opportunities.  In the tie-breaker we got off to a poor start and lost 7-2.  In the second set we started great and had a break at 2-1 and then another break at 4-1 and so we were 5-1 up without yet been broken.  However, things got a little ugly from that point and we got broken twice in a row and we back to 5-5 and then another tie-breaker.  This time we got off to a great start and we up 5-0 and closed it out 7-5.

In the super-tiebreaker, we again got off to a strong start and were up 6-1, but our opponents fought back to 6-4 before we closed it out 10-5; an exciting match and a very solid win against a good team.

Later today we will play Nicholas Mahut and Eduardo Roger- Vasselin a very good French team who have been highly ranked players on the tour for some time.  Mahut is also in the singles final after beating Clement yesterday in the semis in a very high-quality and entertaining match.  Mahut likes to attack the net and Clement is very small, extremely quick around the court and has great feel off the ground.

I will post the results of the doubles final tomorrow.

Dear friends:

After the rain of Tanger, we were greeted with mostly sunshine and clear skies for the second leg of our Moroccan tour.

This tournament also offered hospitality for all the main draw players and the official hotel was stately and must have been quite beautiful back in the day, but now it was run down and lots of things just simply did not work.

Our hosts were very generous and offered all the players a complimentary breakfast and dinner.  The meals were simple, but good for many, but they had little for vegetarians and so I continued with breakfasts of mostly white bread.  For lunch, the boys and I found a Pizza Hut close to the courts and there I had a daily salad which was not bad.  For dinner, the staff at the hotel, who were all extremely friendly and accommodating, always fixed me something off the menu which was all meat, but usually it was rice and boiled vegetables and while this cuisine did not particularly tickle my culinary glands, it did satisfy my hunger.

We were scheduled to play on Tuesday evening, but a passing rain shower put an end to that.  On Wednesday afternoon, we played our first round match against Adrian Menendez-Maceiras and Lamine Ouahab, the latter had made the semis of the singles the previous week and was a talented played with some special skills.  It was not a pretty match and we played a little up and down and squeezed out a 7-6;5-7; 12-10 victory.  The boys were not playing consistently, although it was only their second match playing together.  I had not been able to get them both playing well at the same time and I feel if they could, they could be a really good team.

In the second match, we were pitted against Flavio Cipolla from Italy and Pablo Andujar from Spain.  Cipolla was a talented touch player who could come in and stay back; he had climbed the singles and doubles ranking to a high of well within the top 100, but his ranking had recently slipped.  Andujar was a solid singles player who had just lost a very tough singles match.  We started off great and ripped through the opening set 6-2, breaking Cipolla’s serve twice (his serve is the weakest part of his game).  In the second set, we got to 3-3 when it became dark and it was decided to suspend the match until the next day. 

The next unfortunately we were the second best team on the court and we lost the second set 3-6 and then the super-tiebreaker 5-10.  The boys were disappointed and felt they should have beaten this team, but I felt the opponents played very well and neither of our guys stepped up to the challenge.  Our opponents went onto win the entire tournament and I think then the boys realized how tough they were.

We lost Friday and Saturday morning we caught a train to Casablanca.  It was a beautiful ride; the Moroccan countryside is lush green with flowing hills and fields.  The trains were clean and on time. 

Our flight to Paris was a little delayed and we finally got in around 9pm.  Since we now needed a three hour train ride to reach Cherbourg, the site of the next tournament, we decided to spend the night in Paris and leave the next morning.

We found a small hotel near the airport and Harsh, Adil and I shared a room.  We had a quiet dinner near the hotel and hit the sack quite late. 

The next morning we had planned to catch the 9:10 train to Cherburg, but missed it due to a mix-up over the time change from Morocco to Paris and now we are waiting to catch the 11:45 train instead.  We were hoping to get in earlier, but we still want to practice today, since we are transitioning from clay to fast indoor hard so the more time we spend on the courts before our first match the better.

Last week’s tournament was very tough because it is the only Challenger being played world-wide and this week it will be the same situation.  So we are expecting tough matches, all we can do is prepare and focus on our own execution and compete the best we can and see what happens.  I feel we have identified areas for both players and both are becoming better, but now they need to put it together in a match…….let’s see what happens!

Dear friends:

Last weekend we had already arrived in Tanger, Morocco, the site of our next Challenger.

Our friendly taxi driver, Abdullah, had been taking us around, but we said goodbye to Abdullah on Saturday after he moved us into the official hotel.  This challenger has hospitality, which means all main draw players are given free accommodation.  The singles players get 5 nights regardless and the doubles players are on their own the day after they lose, but everyone can move in Saturday and the tournament does not begin until Monday, although everyone does not play on the first day.

Well the story of the week has been the rain.  It has rained every single day since we arrived and some days no play was possible at all.  This resulted in a lot of sitting around for the players waiting to play and lots of inactivity, which is difficult for these young guys.  The hotel, while very nice, has a limited gym with no weights and one treadmill and a few stationary bikes and limited space for stretching.

For the tournament officials the rain also resulted in a lot of waiting and making plans and schedules and then changing them again and again and again.  However, it was worst for the poor guys doing court maintenance.

The red clay courts in Morocco are different from say the clay courts in Long Island or even the clay courts in Europe.  In the States and Europe there is a lot more rain so the courts are built with layers underneath that aid drainage, but in Morocco, the problem is not too much rain, but too much sun.  Consequently the courts are layered to keep moisture in and not to drain.  So when they had the most rain this week for decades, it was not good for getting the courts ready to play quickly after a shower.  It could rain hard for 10 minutes and the courts would be out for 90 minutes.

Every time it rained, the crew would wait a while and then push the collected puddles off the court and then take off some of the wet clay and replace it with dry clay and then sweep and line.  And then it would rain again…..and so the process would continue.

The Moroccan people are an interesting blend of east and west.  The dress is very conservative and somewhat traditional as is the openness and friendliness of the people in a subdued way.  Men are everywhere, while the women are more protected and less visible in general.  However, at the tennis club there were women and their interaction with the men was quite open with young couples showing affection in a measured way which is quite unusual in the east.   There was holding hands and mild flirting, but no outward show of affection like kissing or anything like that.  The kids were all pretty well-behaved and the adults were definitely in charge which is not always the case in the west.

We waited 6 days to play our first match.  In the first round we were given a walk-over because one of our opponents had played 2 matches and was exhausted.  In the next round we played Steve Darcis from Belgium and Dominik Meffert from Germany.  Darcis is an excellent singles player ranked about 100 in the world and is about 5’7” while his partner was more of a doubles specialist and was about 6’3”.  It was always going to be a tough match.  These singles players can stay back on the clay courts hit these amazingly huge forehands all day long. 

We needed to develop a different doubles strategy to deal with so many players staying back after serving.

Harsh’s regular doubles partner was injured in Dallas and so is unavailable for the next 3 weeks.  We committed to playing with a young man we met in Honolulu and got to know better in Dallas.  Adil Shamasadin is a Canadian with an Indian mother and a Pakistani father.  He is a great kid, with exceptional returns and quick hands and feet.  In other words his strengths are very similar to Harsh’s and for that reason I was not sure how this was going to turn out, but we decided to give it a shot.

Anyway, we got off to a good start by breaking the big guy in the 4th game and then consolidating the break, but from there it went all wrong and we got broken twice and lost the set 7-5.  For the second week in a row we were a set and a break down after the first game of the second set.  However, for the second week in a row we came back to play some solid tennis and won the second set 6-3.  In the super-tiebreaker, we got off to a poor start and were down 9-4 and came back to 9-7 before finally losing.

In a close match every player thinks back to the few points that could have made a difference and feels they could have won, but of course someone has to lose the close matches also and it often comes down to execution at critical times.

I met some interesting characters this week.  One that stands out is Jack, an Aussie coach working with a very talented Ukrainian.  We also met Stephane Robert the top seed in the singles and whom Harsh had once beaten in the qualies at the tour event in Chennai.  Stephane, who is now ranked 67 in the world actually beat Jack’s charge, Olecsandr Dolgopolov (we call him Alex) in a very entertaining final 7-6; 6-4.  Alex is super talented with a very unorthodox backhand.  Stephane on the other hand is so solid and consistent with unbelievable control.  Both move amazingly.

Sunday morning, a lot of the players are being bused down to Mekness, the site of the next tournament.  It is about a four hour ride and we should get to see some of the Moroccan countryside.  Unfortunately, the rain is predicted to keep falling today and to continue into next week. 

We will have to see what comes up and deal with it the best we can!

Dear friends:

Bergamo is a small, but beautiful Italian city with all the friendliness of a small town mentality with the beauty of the richness of the Roman tradition.

Harsh’s partner for this week was the wild Jamaican, Dustin Brown.  Wild, not just because of the flamboyance of his big time game (huge serve and go-for-broke attitude on returns, but also for his infamous late-night activities followed by brilliant displays of athleticism by day (skills very few modern-day tennis players can boast of!).   Dustin had just come off a big week at the Johannesburg tour event where he made the quarters which is really big time!!!

I knew a lot of the players at this Challenger and it is always nice to meet up with old acquaintances, especially when so many of them are characters.  There was Prakash Armitraj, son of the famous Vijay and a beautiful personality in his own right;  Ilias Bozojiliac, whom I affectionately call ‘Bozo’, from Serbia was one of the first players we met and he was there with his new coach from Italy, Alberto.  Alberto is an accomplished coach with a couple of dvds and a few books to his credit as well as a host of experience for the past many years on the men’s tour.

Jaime is another friend from England who is someone Harsh and I have seen for many years, now experiencing some kind of rejuvenation in the ‘twilight’ of his career and a lovely young man.

Of course along the way we made new friends also at this tournament.  While most players are serious about their tennis and pretty focused around tennis, there is a lot of down time to catch up and especially meal time is an opportunity to share one’s story.

Beyond the players our hosts were friendly and accommodating.  Glauko was head of transportation and he picked us up from the train station and drove us to the hotel.  He had a slew of friends he had ropped into being drivers for the week, my favourite among whom was Lucca; not just because he was the namesake of my nephew, but also because of his open, friendly and engaging energy.  Glauko was also an aspiring agent and had as his first client, a 14 year-old young man who he hopes is destined for big things.

This was a tough Challenger because it was the only Challenger being held world-wide.  In the first round we were drawn against the number 2 seeds from England Jamie Murray and Jonathan Marray.  Jamie is Andrew’s younger brother and a decent player, but obviously not in his brother’s class.  He has a tough lefty serve and mediocre returns, but knows how to play doubles.  Jonathan Marray also has a big serve and so-so returns, but volleys well and moves smartly at the net.

The match did not start well for us, we had opportunities, but were not able to break, despite having two 3-3 points (there is no-ad scoring in doubles everywhere except in the slams.  In short, we lost the first set 6-1, but it was much closer than that.  In the second set we were broken immediately and it looked pretty bleak for us.  However, the boys fought back and took the second set to a tie-breaker where Harsh played tough at the end to close it out.

We started well in the super-tiebreaker and got a mini break immediately, but were not able to hang on and lost the breaker 7-10.

The boys were disappointed, but we know we had played well and lost to a good team (who went on to win the tournament).  Having said that Harsh and I knew we had some things to work on and we spent the next few days (after a day off) training and working on the aspects of his game that we needed to strengthen.  The courts were indoor hard and very fast, a definite plus for the big servers, but also helped Harsh in that the ball stayed low and rewarded players who hit flat and hard.

On Thursday we decided to leave for Tanger, Morocco early to prepare for our next tournament which was to be on red clay.  We took the short flight from Bergamo to Tanger and since we were early we could not check into the official hotel and so stayed by the airport for the first two nights.  Most of the tournaments in Europe have hospitality which means the doubles players get free housing (hotel) from Saturday until the day after they lose.

Our first contact with a Moroccan was our taxi driver from the airport to our Hotel.  Abdullah was a 55 year-old man with four kids ranging from ages of less than 6 months to 20 years old.  He drove a big taxi and mostly made airport runs.  Tanger had about 30 or so of these type of taxis and they all collected at the airport for the 7-10 times a day flights came in.  Tough way to make a living and certainly it was not much of a living, but somehow he was clearly surviving.  He was a jovial character and a ‘good’ human being.

More impressions on Morocco next week.

Dear Friends:

Our host family for the Dallas Challenger was a very nice family.  They were very generous in their hospitality and had two cute young boys called Jackson and James.  Harsh and I had our own rooms and we were very comfortable.  The host family lived about a 10 minute drive from the club where the tournament was held and they dropped us off and picked us up every day.

The club was beautiful and big.  It had a number of indoor courts where the tournament was held as well as a whole bunch of outdoor courts.  The weather was a little rainy and cold and while you could play outside all year round we were told by the locals that the indoor courts came in handy at times, especially in the summer when it got extremely hot.

Harsh and Treat were the number two seeds and played  Alex Bogomolov from the US and Michael Ryderstadt from Sweden.  Alex was hot and had beaten the top seed in singles the day before.  He is a power hitter and rips his returns, moves well and pounds balls from the back.  His partner, Ryderstadt, was coming off a long lay-off and was not yet at his best.

Treat also developed an injury which prevented him from driving his forehand and although he adapted pretty well by chipping his forehand returns and not letting it affect the rest of his game, it was quite a disadvantage.

We came out strong and dominated the first set and played a couple of loose games in the second set to find ourselves tied up at one set all and playing the super tie-breaker which is a crap shoot.  Luckily for us, we started off strong again and got off to a huge lead and dominated to win 10-2.

In the quarters we came up against Andre Bergemann from Germany and Marcio Torres from Brazil.  Again we started off well and polished off the first set effectively and once more we were less precise in the second and before we know it, another crap shoot.  The super tie-breaker was interesting because we lost it a few times and yet kept coming back and even had a match point at 10-9, but we were not able to convert the return of serve and ended up losing 12-10 in a very tightly contested match.  Bergemann played well and we knew he woiuld be the danger man.  He served well and moved well at the net.  However, Torres played better than expected.

The boys were disappointed, especially Treat because of his injury, but what can you do?  They gave it their best shot.

Treat and Harsh were supposed to leave immediately for Italy to play a challenger in Bergamo, but Treat obviously needed to go home to see a doctor to see what the problem was.  The good news it is a muscular injury and not a tendon on the elbow, consequently the injury only prevents him from turning the forearm over in a forehand type of motion.  Hopefully, he will recover shortly after some rest and return to the tour.  It is probably an over use injury.

So Harsh had to scramble for another partner for Bergamo and after a little drama was able to secure Dustin Brown, a Jamaican based in Germany.  Dustin has a huge serve and goes for broke on his returns, which means he makes a lot of errors, but also can return big.  We thought he could be a good match for Harsh because of his power.  We shall see.

We arrived in NY on Friday evening from Dallas and spent the night at my parent’s house and then took off for Italy the next day at 7pm.  The journey was quite brutal, especially for me because I was a little sick and was not able to sleep on the plane at all.  We arrived in Milan after an 8 hours plus flight and then had to take a bus and a train to Bergamo where we arrived at around 1:30pm at our hotel.  Both Harsh and I basically crashed and slept until about 9pm and then had a little dinner and then went back to sleep about 11pm.  We slept another solid 4 hours and then kind of snoozed on and off until the sun rose.

Hi Friends:

Honolulu is beautiful and we enjoyed lots of sunshine and warmth, although there was a little rain at times but usually only at the end of the day.

Harsh and Treat were the top seeds and got through the first round without too much trouble against two Italians, Stoppini and Curagnola.  Truth be told both opponents had already lost their first round singles matches and seemed less then totally motivated in producing their best tennis. 

In the next round we were pitted against the Davis Cup doubles team from Japan, Go Soeda and Hiroki Kundo.  The players all held serve through the first 8 games with our boys always looking more likely to break serve.  Harsh has an excellent return of serve, especially off the backhand side and he was having an excellent day.  Treat’s return is not his strong suit so we have been working on it a lot in practice and it has improved to the point of being patchy.

Treat’s serve however is excellent and for a small guy he can really crank it up.  He won a fast serve competition in Binghampton, NY last year after being clocked at 137mph.  In addition to the heat he can kick it out wide viciously on the deuce court and the slice out wide on the ad court (yes, he is a lefty).  Anyway, at 4-4 in the first set, it was Treat’s serve that was broken, although not because he serve poorly, but more because we did not put away our volley opportunities. 

The opponent’s held and the first set was history.  We started the second set well and finished even stronger by breaking our opponent’s serve twice and clinching the set 6-2. 

At all levels of the tour, except the super 9s and the Grand Slams. the third set of a doubles match has been replaced by a super-tiebreaker (first to 10 points). 

We started the decider well, Treat served up a big serve and Harsh ripped a backhand return up the line.  From there the wheels came off a little and the opponents won 5 points in a row and although we did recover to 5-5, we were unable to produce the goods when it most counted and lost 6-10.

Both players were disappointed, but we were able to extract the positives from this performance and resolved to work on certain things and move forward.

Off the court, my friend Sam has been a wonderful help to us.  He set up housing for us with his friends and that saved the boys some money.  In addition, Sam became our go-to man for all and any problems that arose, a role he played efficiently and with enthusiasm.

Treat left on Friday evening and Harsh and I leave Sunday afternoon.  We will reconvene in Dallas on Monday and hit the practice courts again ready for our next adventure. 

Let’s see what happens!

Dear friends:

After spending 5 wonderful weeks in New York playing tennis with friends and generally chilling and enjoying the beauty of winter from the comforts of my warm and cozy bedroom I left for LA on Thursday to meet up with Harsh Mankad whom I will be coaching for the next few months.

I have coached Harsh part-time for the past approximately 6 years or so and he has recently given up playing singles after reaching an ATP high of about 220 and is now focused on doubles and is presently ranked 107 in the world. 

Since September of last year Harsh has been playing regularly with a young man called Treat Huey and it was the two of them that I coached at the end of last year for 5 weeks.  Harsh will be playing again with Treat for the foreseeable future.

We were in LA for just 2 rainy days and then caught a 6 1/2 flight to Honolulu for the first Challenger of the new season in the USA.  Challengers are the minor leagues of pro tennis, just below the big-time and players must play these events and accumulate enough points to raise their rankings to a level that will allow them to get into pro tour events.

I have a friend who has lived in Honolulu for many years and he was kind enough to arrange accommodation for all three of us.  Treat and Harsh are staying in a small apartment in Waiki, which is close to the beach and in the center of town and I am staying about a 10 minute drive away.  So we rented a car and saved some big money on accommodation.  Players at this level, where the points are priceless, but the prize money is very ordinary, are struggling to pay their bills so any kind of help is always appreciated.

Treat played in the qualies of the singles and lost in the 2^nd round and the doubles will start Wednesday for us, so we have a few days to practice and tune in to each other after a couple of months away.