May 10th, 2011, 9:26 p.m.
I’m finishing out the weekend in Cincinnati by hanging out with some friends! We grabbed some food together and explored the city a little bit. It’s always great to unwind a bit after a tournament. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet some amazing people while playing on the tour. Even though I come to these tournaments to compete, my friends are the ones who make every tournament enjoyable even when I didn’t necessarily get the results I wanted. Thanks for keeping up with me this weekend!
May 10th, 2025, 10:47 a.m.
Just finished up for the day. We made quarters, and then we lost to Allison and Judit. They just played a really clean game. They were speeding up at the right times, their defense was amazing. I knew going in that their defense would be really good. Their hands were just on every single ball - I felt like every time we sped up, they were there. So props to them. I thought they played extremely well.
Actually, I'm pretty happy with the way I played today. It was probably my best day play-wise. I think singles was okay, but today was definitely the one I felt most comfortable. Sometimes you just run into a team that plays too good, and that's part of pickleball. Just gonna watch Jack now. He's in men's pro doubles today with Alex Crum, he's a good friend of ours, so that'll be fun. And then I think we're gonna try to find an activity in the city later, hopefully, since now I don't have anything tomorrow! But just gonna try and explore the city a bit, and really just take in Cincinnati. It's such a nice day and such a nice city that it would be a waste to not do something.
May 10th, 2025, 9:24 a.m.
Just finished my second match of today with Christine. We played pretty well. I think we just played like a very clean game. We got away from our strategy in the second game a little bit, which was just kind of a normal strategy: play slow, wait for your moment, speed up. We started to get a little bit trigger-happy, I would say. So they got up on us, 4-0 I think. Honestly, it might have been 6-0. Then we just kind of went back to our strategy, we did a really good job of resetting and I think after that they only scored, what, one point, because it was 11-7. So just a really good job of implementing strategy, I think that's huge in doubles, finding a strategy that works and then sticking with it so I'm really proud of us for that, and hopefully we can do that in the next one, too.
May 10th, 2025, 8:31 a.m.
Just finished my first game - went pretty well, always a little rusty when you first get out there, so just had to kind of work into our shots, start making the right decisions. I've never played that team before, so kind of had to figure out where to speed up at them, or if we wanted to play a little bit slower, play a little bit faster, whatever we could find, basically. Then I actually had a little bit of a tiny, tiny, tiny injury. I got hit by the ball on my knuckles! I'd take a little time out to get a band aid, but we were at 10, so I was trying to power through it, but then it made me rush, which I'm sure a lot of people can relate to. When you're trying to finish a game too fast, you start to make some stupid errors and do exactly what you're not supposed to be doing, but moral of the story, don't get hit on your knuckle, because it'll bleed a lot, a lot, even if it's just a small scratch. But yeah, happy to come away with a win there and just gonna keep trying to build on what we did in that match.
May 10th, 2025, 7:15 a.m.
Hi guys! It's my third day here. I have women's doubles today. I'm playing with Christine Maddox, she is such a great partner. I've played with her once before, earlier in the year. I love playing with her, she has such great energy, and she has a lot of power, which is great because - I was actually just saying to someone else - when the ball gets high, it's immediately put away. And I'm like, 'great point over!' But yeah, I'm super excited for today.
Last night, I didn't do very much, I think just the amount of tournaments that we've played leading up to this - Jack and I went to China for a tournament - I think it just caught up to us a bit, and we kind of just took a day to just chill out and relax. Just excited to get out there today, and hopefully have a little bit of a longer day than the last two days.
May 9th, 2025, 1:41 p.m.
So we just finished our second match of the day. Had a pretty tough draw in the back draw, had Allison and Kyle in the first round. They played well. I actually felt like we didn't play badly, I thought we played pretty decently. I think the big thing was we just got up, and I think we stopped being aggressive. I think we were kind of just waiting for them to miss, which I think can happen a bunch. I know that happens to me a lot when I am up, instead of willing myself to win, I'm kind of willing them to lose, and that never works. You have to keep your foot on the gas and I think we definitely took it off. They started playing better towards the end of the match too. They didn't make a single error the last couple points of the match. And they played well, they're a good team. When you play a good team, you have to play well, and you have to stay in the pattern that was working, and I think we just became too passive in the end of that match.
I'm gonna go watch my women's doubles partner play. She's in the quarterfinals right now. I think she's having a battle with Megan and Jack Munro, so I'm gonna go cheer her on, and then if she's up for it a little later, I'll probably get some practice in for tomorrow, because it's a new day tomorrow. For tonight, probably similar to last night, I'm kind of a creature of habit. I'll get some dinner with Jack and his dad, and then I don't know. I'll just try to have a good mindset going into tomorrow morning.
May 9th, 2025, 11:04 a.m.
Chris and I just finished our first match of the day. It did not go the way that we wanted it to. We had a really slow start, specifically me, I had a really slow start in the first game of the match, and we battled our way back. Lost the first one, 11-8, and then going into the second, we had some good energy going into the second we were up. We just kind of let it slip through our fingers. Definitely not the best start to the day, but we still have the back draw later, and we're hoping to make a run back there and just try to learn from this experience. I thought we had a good warm up too, but definitely came out just a bit rocky. So hopefully in the next one, we'll be able to kind of piece some of the things together that we didn't do in the last one.
This one's hard. I'm taking it pretty hard, but I'm just thinking that you can fight through the back draw and that will kind of help pick you up. I think it's good to play the back draw so that you can work back into it. I think leaving with a sour taste in your mouth and going to the next day always makes it worse, versus trying to pick yourself back up and play. Just keep playing and just basically do the basics. I think when you're really down, it's best to just go to the basics - don't try to do anything crazy. Play a little slower and try to get your rhythm back, because I think that's really what it was. I think you're just a little out of rhythm, but it's hard. It's really hard to kind of pick yourself up after a tight game like that.
Having a bye, like we did this morning, isn't always a good thing. The other team comes out hot, they just come off of a win. They're feeling good, and we're coming off of warming up. I mean, you can have so much warm up, but I think you get the nerves out of your system in the first game. And so we're coming in a little bit hesitant, and they're coming in swinging. They played very well. They didn't really make many errors at all, so props to them. But I definitely think I like the tournaments more where we don't have a bye, genuinely, because I think you don't play a team that's coming in so hot. I think it's a little bit of a disadvantage to have a bye. People think it's great because if you win one, you're already in quarters, but I think it can definitely kind of put you on your back foot, especially when you're playing a good team like Emily and Naveen are a good team. Nobody's bad in mixed or in any of the events, honestly, anymore. There are no easy draws and so kind of having that first game to get going, I do think is a big advantage. I like the bigger draws better for sure because then everybody plays the first round.
May 9th, 2025, 8:10 a.m.
Second day!
Last night, I was able to go to dinner with Jack and his dad, like I said. We had a really nice dinner, it's always great hanging out with them. We actually ran into some of the other players at an ice cream shop late night last night; we were just there, and they walked in and it was so funny. We were at Graeter's, it's the best. Whenever we're here, we always go there, and that was really fun. They were some good friends of ours too, so that was funny. We actually Lime scooted around the whole city a bit, which was cool, a little cold, but very cool. We love the city, it's so nice here!
Then this morning, we just woke up, got some breakfast, tried to have the same routine that I always do. I try to keep it the same. I literally just go to Starbucks, get the same breakfast every single time - a ham and Swiss croissant - and then I go to the court. I really struggle to eat, so it's the one thing that, I don't know why, but I can always get down. If I try other things before tournaments I get so nauseous. During tournament days I never actually feel nervous, but for some reason the eating thing, it always gets me. I don't know why it's like that. I used to play field hockey and it was like that too, and I feel like that's a very common thing. I know a lot of people that I used to coach, they would struggle with that too. I would tell them, 'just find the one thing that you can eat and just get it down as much as you can.'
Now I'm gonna warm up with Chris for mixed, I'm very excited to play with him. We've had a pretty good year together so far. He's such a great partner. He's very supportive, and we just keep growing as a team, which is great.
May 8th, 2025, 1:22 p.m.
Just finished up for the day. Got to the quarters and I had a really grindy match with Shannon Pretorius. She played extremely well. Her passes were spot on, and she rarely missed one. I thought I did a good job of covering the net, just need to probably add a drop volley to my game. But something to work on for the future, always something to learn every single time. I wish her good luck in the rest of the matches. Big shout out again to Jack and Richard for coaching me. They really helped me through that match, and it probably wouldn't have been as close if they weren't there.
I'm probably going to - from now on to the rest of the day - I'm going to play some mixed with Chris Haworth to get ready for tomorrow. It's really good, for me at least, to practice after singles and kind of reset my mind, especially after a tough loss like that. If I just go back to the hotel room, I'll probably just keep thinking about it, which just kind of makes it worse. So I always try to play a little bit, get some reps in, think about the next day. That's the beauty of pickleball, there's always another day. Then I'm going to go to dinner with Jack and his dad later, and try to get a good night's rest tonight.
May 8th. 2025, 11:30 a.m.
Just got done with my first match of the day. It went pretty well, definitely some things to improve on. I was lucky, I had Jack and Richard there to help coach me after they had just played each other, which really they do a great job of either talking me down when I get a little too angry with myself, but also just telling me what shots to hit, which is great. Helen played very well. She made a lot of really good shots. She does a really good job of getting into the net. It was basically a battle of who would get to the net first and then who could pass in the tight moment. So glad to come out on top of that one. I don't know exactly who I play yet, but I think I have a little bit of time.
May 8th, 2025, 9:35 a.m.
Hey, it's Amanda Hendry, this is my first blog. I'm super excited to do it! I got to drive here to Cincinnati, actually, which was really nice, because I'm based in Nashville right now, so it was only like a four-hour drive. So it's always nice to do that, versus having to get to the airport and fly. I'm staying with my boyfriend, Jack Foster, and his dad, who likes to travel to a bunch of the events. He plays the 3.0 division, I believe, so we got to watch him a little bit, which is nice.
Every singles day, when the men start before the women, I'll watch one of Jack's matches, and then I'll go warm up. Right now I'm watching Jack play my good friend Richard, who's also one of Jack's best friends, so it's always a little awkward having to watch your boyfriend play one of your best friends. But it's also usually a friendly match, so that makes it easy too. Jack's actually struggling with a little bit of an ankle injury right now, so he's trying to work through it. I'm really proud of him for playing today. He's just had a little bit of a rough year, he had a knee injury in the beginning of the year and then now the ankle thing, but hopefully he'll recover from this pretty fast.
I'm excited to play some singles today! Looking forward to mixed with Chris Hayworth and women's with Christine Maddox. I'm playing with the two Chrises and just really excited to get out there.
