Bonjour from Guadalupe! – Davis Cup and Guadalupe Tennis Tournament Update
Bonjour from Guadalupe! - Davis Cup and Guadalupe Tennis Tournament Update | 
We’re at our next ITF tournament here in Guadalupe after a successful title run in the singles draw by Nick Crystal in last week’s Trinidad ITF. Other winners in Trinidad include Madison Bourguignon in the girls’ singles and Si Ying Julienne Keong and Ljubov Vazhenina in the girls’ doubles. Madison was sporting a SOLINCO patch on her dress all week and was using Solinco’s Max Revolution strings, she’s also currently #1 on Tennis Recruiting in her age division. Si Ying Julienne Keong is a friend of 10sballs.com’s Zsolt Karosi who runs a tennis academy in Singapore, it was a delight to see Keong sporting one of his rare academy shirts!
Trinidad was an awesomely humid place, thankfully people spoke English and we were able to find food easily. It was seriously a rough week dealing with the heat and all-day matches. We would go from the hotel to the tennis site, tennis site to a restaurant for lunch, then back to the hotel to shower and then head out for dinner. We kept that same schedule, eating at the same places for 6 days straight. From what I’ve witnessed, the only significant differences are in attitudes. The umpires and officials don’t take any B.S. from these kids, there’s a “do it yourself” mentality, and you really just have to go with the flow in any situation or else you’ll cause a scene that makes you look selfish and stupid.
Anyway, after leaving Trinidad, we had a 5 hour layover in St Lucia (Oh yeah, you know what’s coming next…) and we decided to take a break from life. We walked down the gangway off the plane (there are no gates or terminals, just tarmac and airport check-in desks), piled our bags into a taxi and headed straight for Reduit Beach. We ate some breakfast right on the sand, changed into swimsuits, and started to enjoy the beach. This was the first time we were able to enjoy a couple of free hours all week. Right as we were really settling down and about to enjoy some wakeboarding and jet skiing, we had to go back to the airport for our flight to Guadalupe via Martinique (4 stops in 4 countries).
Guadalupe is an entirely different animal from Trinidad. While still a relaxing and luxurious vacation spot, it is entirely European in style and French in language. It’s a gorgeous place with modern architecture and a carefree lawlessness which is characteristic to all the Caribbean islands. I’m thankfully drawing upon all my years of highschool French classes to ask for directions and order food for everyone, it’s quite fun at times because you’re forced to be creative. Roads are cramped, portions are small, prices are in the Euro which decimates the US Dollar, and everyone is looking at us like conquering foreigners because our US Davis Cup team just defeated Tsonga and the likes of the French Davis Cup team in France. What a great event for Isner as he was able to defeat Tsonga on clay huh? That’s two top 10 wins (W vs. Federer in Switzerland) in the past couple months for him on his worst surface. I can’t wait to see how Djokovic will handle the Nadal and Federer onslaughts during the lead up to the French Open, there will be some insane matches played in the next few weeks.
I’ll be uploading more pics of the foods and landscapes from Guadalupe as they seem to have their act together in terms of services provided; for some reason everywhere we went in Trinidad internet and credit card services were always down! C’est la vie…
Shubert
Topics: Guadalupe tennis tournament, Jo Wilfried Tsonga, Ljubov Vazhenina, Madison Bourguignon, Madison Keys, Nick Crystal, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Si Ying Julienne Keong, Solinco's Max Revolution strings, Sports, Thomas Shubert
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