Clay Court Season Arrives

I was fortunate enough to witness the official unveiling of the Centre Court roof at Wimbledon today along with my sister, Holly. With a capacity crowd, the atmosphere was amazing. The roof is highly impressive and the lighting has such an effect, that it is barely noticeable when play is taking place under a closed roof. It would be such a fantastic honour if I ever have the opportunity to play on this newly designed Centre Court.

I idolised Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi when I was younger, so it was a real pleasure for me watching them today. The fact that it was pouring with rain outside during the exhibition certainly strengthened the reasoning behind having the roof in the first place!

Tomorrow, I'm dreading an early morning alarm call before I catch the Eurostar over to Paris, especially as I've yet to even think about packing... I'm being as disorganised as usual! However, I've had a great week of training at the NTC, so I'll be boarding the train tomorrow with the knowledge that I've prepared as well as I can.

I haven't played any of the lead up tournaments on clay before Roland Garros (apart from Charleston last month), but I'm already pretty match tight from the volume of matches I've played this year and I've incorporated a lot of practice points into my training in the last week. Thankfully, my movement on the clay is much more assured than it was a couple of weeks ago!

It will be a gruelling task to come through three tough matches on consecutive days in my pursuit to qualify for the French Open, but I'm just going to take each match as it comes.

I managed to play four shots in practice earlier in the week before firing a ball towards the back fence, which was when I realized that I had been playing with the wrong racket... with a broken string. I'm capable of the most stupid things sometimes!

I'm feeling rather proud of myself this week, because I scored 74% in my latest assignment. I think this was quite a good effort considering I completed the assignment in one day and I wasn't entirely sure what it was I was writing about. 1500 words may not sound like much, but I can't remember the last time I was required to write something that long!

I did a bit of online shopping earlier this week. I love it – it has revolutionized my life. That might actually be a slight exaggeration, but there's something therapeutic about scouring the pages of Amazon and eBay, especially when I'm overseas with not much better to do. I bought my Mum's birthday present last week, although I might have cheekily added a few things for myself to the order!

I even have an eBay application on my phone, which means I can follow my bids in an instant. I very well remember an incident at the end of last year. I was after a pair of Ugg Boots and being consumer savvy (or so I like to think), I figured I would save a lot more money buying them on eBay than in the shops.

It just so happened that the bidding for the specific pair of Ugg boots I was after was ending whilst I was doing a particularly nasty track session down at Wimbledon Park. I could think of plenty of other places where I'd rather have been: I was on my own, it was freezing cold, the track was barely visible in the fading light, and there was not a soul in sight. Clearly, others had more common sense than I did.

The session involved an unpleasant mix of 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m. The only thing that kept me motivated was the knowledge that I could have a pair of Ugg boots once I'd completed the session. Things were looking good before the final set. During my rest, I checked the eBay application on my phone and I was the highest bidder with three minutes remaining.

However, I learned the hard way that the eBay bidding process can hand out the cruellest blows. After crossing the finish line and practically collapsing in a heap, I felt even worse when I discovered that I'd been outbid at the last moment and had nothing to show for the effort I'd put in to my training session. I couldn't believe it!

Once I set my mind on having something, I very rarely look back. Whilst in New Zealand, I successfully won a bid for a different pair of Ugg boots... so all ended well and I was happy!

Well, I'd better say “Au Revoir” for now, as I've got a great mess in my bedroom to attend to. I hope that next week I'll be reporting from the main draw in Paris!