Too bad we only have this tournament once a year. There is nothing else here in this town. Especially not without kids.
Two years ago, we hosted the Belgian player An-Sophie Mestach. Unfortunately, I never got to see her play. While she was playing her first game, that she lost, I was teaching French at Delta college. I was so bummed. This was not going to happen to me twice!
Two years ago, we hosted the Belgian player An-Sophie Mestach. Unfortunately, I never got to see her play. While she was playing her first game, that she lost, I was teaching French at Delta college. I was so bummed. This was not going to happen to me twice!
This year, we were lucky to be able to host Yanina Wickmayer (once number 12 in the world) and her new coach Germain Gigounon who just stopped his tennis career as a player.
The week before she played in Midland, Yanina participated in a tournament in California. I can't imagine how hard it must be to go directly from warm temperatures to extreme cold ones. During that particular week, Michigan was suffering under brutally cold temperatures. Consequence: No school for the whole week. So we strongly advised our guests to continue their travel on Sunday night as they did manage to get to Chicago but were stuck there because of flight cancellations. Luckily, they did not ignore our advice and were lucky to stay just a couple of hours ahead of the snow storm. They arrived safely early Monday morning.
We enjoyed the games throughout the whole week starting on Monday.
The week before she played in Midland, Yanina participated in a tournament in California. I can't imagine how hard it must be to go directly from warm temperatures to extreme cold ones. During that particular week, Michigan was suffering under brutally cold temperatures. Consequence: No school for the whole week. So we strongly advised our guests to continue their travel on Sunday night as they did manage to get to Chicago but were stuck there because of flight cancellations. Luckily, they did not ignore our advice and were lucky to stay just a couple of hours ahead of the snow storm. They arrived safely early Monday morning.
We enjoyed the games throughout the whole week starting on Monday.
Yanina stranded in the quarter finals (single match) and the semi finals (double match). Her partner in the doubles (see photos below) was Christina McHale. Her coach Peter Lucassen is from the Netherlands.
It was such a joy to watch her play six times in total. We asked her to sign our big tennis ball with already signatures of Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin (both players were once number one in the world).
It was such a joy to watch her play six times in total. We asked her to sign our big tennis ball with already signatures of Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin (both players were once number one in the world).
