Red Eye from the Land of the Rising Sun, Practice at Univ. of Hawaii, Serena Sorrows?

Written by: Staff on 7th January 2012

Red Eye from the Land of the Rising Sun, Practice at Univ. of Hawaii, Serena Sorrows? |

Hey everybody! After a long 25hours on the road including a 7hour lay over in Japan, I’ve finally made it back to Hawaii in one piece! I learned via BBC tv that Serena pulled out of Brisbane with an ankle injury. I’m not an expert on the women’s game but from what I know about Serena, it doesn’t matter if she has match practice or not before a Slam! So in a sense, she’s keeping her true form once mysterious once again for all of us to discover for ourselves on the grand stage. Could her ankle injury stem from muscle weakness surrounding the injured area that required surgery? Possibly, but you never want to over-analyze too much, maybe her new Nike shoes had so much grip that she was taking every precaution to protect an over-flexed tendon.

As for me, my shoes are running quite bare at the moment after playing all over Asia in them! I need to send them in for a new pair soon! This afternoon I joined head coach John Nelson at the University of Hawaii tennis center to witness their formal team practice before engaging in a bit of my own with some of Hawaii’s junior players. Coach Nelson has always been kind to me, even in my BYU days when I had a little homecoming to play against UH in a friendly dual match, we always have unique conversations about tennis. My doubles buddy Ikaika Jobe still works closely with the UH men’s team and allows me to practice on the courts whenever I’m in town. A little bit of side info about Ikaika and tennis in Hawaii – He has an audition with the hit TV series, Hawaii 5-0 tomorrow and might land a speaking role! I thought this was particularly cool because of the fact that his tennis prowess got his foot in the door. After a great afternoon of tennis, my body feeling very hungry and vision starting to get blurry, it was time to grub and unpack. Unfortunately the mind wanders and eventually you pick up a good book and can’t put it down! Sigh, when will the jet lag end…? I pushed my body to the limit staying up these past 24hrs yet still couldn’t develop the right melatonin to fall asleep at a decent hour haha!

There are a few collegiate matches at UH this weekend with some high ranked NCAA div. 1 talent coming to the island for early season matches, I will for sure check it out and give you guys an update. I was really reminded today about the major mental difference between touring pros and foreigners playing in the American college system. Short tempers, stress from school work, or constant ideas of perfection surrounding how the game should be played are on constant display during a collegiate practice session. One final thought, Singapore’s weather makes Hawaii’s seem rather chilly. I know it sounds unbelievable but tonight I actually caught a chill from the breeze; I think I need thicker skin or something. But with all the humidity you can’t really build up any layers of skin because you’ll just sweat it all away!

Local kine breakfast when I wake up tomorrow,

Shubert