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March 20, 2003
March 1, 2003: I woke up at 3:00 AM and met the team in Bonnycastle Circle. We got on a bus, drove to Dulles for our 7:00 AM flight and arrived in Los Angeles. I had only gotten about one hour of sleep due to our match, dinner and packing the night before. Rylan Rizza’s parents met us at the airport and drove us down to practice the first day in Palos Verdes. It was warm and sunny, quite a change from snowy Charlottesville. Due to a lack of sleep and the 5 hour plane ride, we all resembled zombies more than tennis players, however, we ended up having a good practice. We then drove to Irvine, checked into our hotel and went to sleep.
March 4, 2003: I woke up early to go have a practice before the warm-up at the UC Irvine tennis courts. I always like to loosen up before the actual warm-up because this way I ensure that my whole body is warmed up for when I go out and play the actual match. After the morning hit we went back to the hotel, showered and I re-gripped my racquets. We drove back to UCI, warmed up, and played. We decided to play the singles first since it looked like rain. I played junior Jonathan Enderkat, someone who I had known for a long time and played in practice a lot, and won 6-3, 6-1. We also won at the other 5 singles positions. Then we played doubles, where Michael Duquette and I beat the team of Enderkat and Greg Biorkman 8-5, clinching the doubles point for the Cavaliers. This match gave us the momentum we needed for the UCLA match the next day.
March 5, 2003: We woke up early again, and drove from Irvine to UCLA so we could get there by 10 AM. We warmed up in the stadium, the same stadium where thousands of tennis fans watch Sampras, Agassi, and other pros every year when they in play the Los Angeles Open pro tournament. We had lunch, and then came back to play #3 UCLA. I warmed up and got ready for my doubles match. From the moment we got to UCLA, we were greeted by nothing but hostility from their fans. A crazed UCLA fan assaulted my father for sitting in a chair and after the match some of the UCLA teammates shouted angry words at our parents and fans. I think they were a bit intimidated by us because they knew we meant business today. Duquette and I played the # 16 ranked team of Marcin Matkowski and Rodrigo Grilli. We got up an early break but lost it and eventually went down 8-4, along with the other 2 UVA doubles teams. None of us were fazed by this. Though we would’ve liked to have won the doubles point, we were only down 1-0, and we were confident we would win at least 4 of the 6 singles matches. I played #8 Tobias Clemens, a junior from Germany and won 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Despite a couple of other good wins by my teammates, we lost in a very close match, 4-3. This match meant a lot to me, not only because I beat a very good player, but also because I had most of my family and many of my friends from high school watching. I had mixed emotions afterward because I had a very good win, but it didn’t mean too much since we lost as a team. That night I got to visit my parents and sleep at home.
March 7, 2003: During the morning hit at UC Santa Barbara, I noticed I had little strength. I was still drained emotionally and physically from the UCLA match, and began to suspect I would be in for a very long, tough match since I would probably not be playing that well in my exhausted state. I went back to the hotel, re-gripped my racquets, as I always do before my matches, and thought about my upcoming match. Duquette and I won in doubles easily, but we lost at #2 and #3 doubles, dropping the doubles point. My singles match could not have gone much worse. I got down immediately, and played the whole match from behind, struggling with fatigue. I lost the first in a tiebreaker, and got down early in the second before coming back and taking that set in a tiebreaker and winning the third. Though my opponent, Palencia, was not ranked nearly as high as Clemens, this may have been the most rewarding victory for me during the trip because I managed to win even though I was physically spent and was playing catch-up for nearly the entire match. We ended up beating UCSB 6-1.
March 8, 2003: Today was our last match of the trip, and the team was noticeably tired. We began by playing some games to loosen everyone up, and then I worked on my serve with my dad because my serve was not too great against UCSB. We all wanted to finish up the trip strong, so we really concentrated on the doubles point, changing up a couple of the teams and winning at #1 and #3 doubles against some tough Pacific teams. I played another tough opponent, but managed to win 6-3, 6-3. In the end, UVa beat Pacific 5-2. The win was a great way to end our week in California.
March 9, 2003: This morning I woke up at 4:30 AM to go to LAX to fly back to Dulles, hoping I could take a little of the California weather back to Charlottesville with me. Tragically, the 70 degree weather and warm sunshine stayed behind on the West Coast, but it still felt good to return to Hooville. We took a bus back to UVa and were relaxing in our rooms at 6 PM. It was a long, grueling trip, but due to our hard work and stamina, we experienced a lot of success that we can build off of for the rest of the season.