Day 2 & 3

Day 2
Thankfully, I didn't get bagel-ed!! I didn't play as well as I had hoped... It was 11-2,11-2,11-5 so it's not bad considering the fact she is number 20 in the world.

Day 3
We played Denmark and lost 3-0. I am a bit disappointed with my performance; I lost 3-2 against a girl who is ranked number 11 under 19 in all of Europe. I definitely could have won but she just played better. I think we play Wales tomorrow.

Tournament links and live videos

Tournament website

http://www.federsquash.it/european-team-championships-2014/

Live streaming

http://sqd.mobimentum.it/live.html

Day 1

So the girl who was supposed to play the first position is injured so I get to play all matches since I moved up from 4th to 3rd. 4th is reserve. We played our first match against Czech republic and lost 3-0. (Each person plays a best of 5 match) one win is a point. I lost 3-0 to number 186 in the world, I didn't play as well as I could have... Later we played Switzerland and I got to play the same girl that I played in Finland. (That time we played best of 3). I won the first game, but it was really close. 16-14. The next two I won 11-6, 11-3. (Different coach btw). We're going to play the number one seed, England. We will have no chance whatsoever. They're reserve player is around number 20 in the world. My goal against them will be to try not to get bagel-ed, meaning getting at least one point per game. :)

Italy!!!!

Arrived in Italy!! It was an hour and a half car ride from the airport to the hotel. Our room is bad, but the view is amazing!! The weather is great too. There are palm tree and the beach is 200m away. We walked around a bit, and bought food for the next few days. But here comes the best part!! I'm literally jumping out of my seat right now. I was in the hotel lobby and saw the women's world champion and men's world champion walk right past!!

Team Days 3 and 4

We played the Swiss team and they gave us chocolate(more about it later). The two guys played first and both lost so they already won. But I played anyway, not the regular best of 5 whoever wins 3 first but best of 3, whoever wins two first. I won in two really close games 13-11, 15-13. The same useless "coach" told me after the first game to just keep playing the same way even though my opponent would of course adjust and change tactics. The second was harder for me to win. I would have wanted to play a third just to see what would have happened. Turns out, the girl is ranked #3 under 17 in all of Europe! Plus, average players in Europe are better than in the US.  I'm glad nobody told me that beforehand. My friend told me that she always gets to the semis or finals of major European tournaments! After that, we played the Italian team again, and this time, won 2-1! I played a different Italian girl and beat her 3-0. Anyway, about the chocolate. They(Swiss) gave us a giant Toblerone. Our "coach" basically just kept it until we forgot but we finally reminded him and he gave us each a small piece. He put it back in his bag and took all of the rest for himself when he didn't do anything the entire team tournament. (I'm glad he wasn't at the individuals) But unfortunately, he's going with our team to Italy. Well, there was my rant. Ending on a happy note, we ended 15th of 20 teams. :P  Still, 2 places higher than our seeding. This week in Finland was an awesome experience and I won 7 and lost 4. I definitely reached my goal(win at least one match). It was my first time traveling with a team and I'm really looking forward to Italy! But before that I'm going to be training near Amsterdam for a few days and then going to hang out with my aunt, uncle, and cousins!