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!

Teams Day 2

I played first against the Czech number one who beat the girl who got first in the individuals this year, last year. The first game was pretty close even though I lost, but then it just went downhill. Our team lost 3-0. The coach was basically useless, I was told to just keep doing the same thing even though I kept losing. I'll probably have to coach myself for the next few days. Later, we played Sweden and beat them! Yaay, our first team win! (Our team is actually really bad) I played horribly but won 3-0, 11-7,11-6,11-5. We lost one match so it was 2-1. We passed our seeding!(17) Now we are going to play Scotland in the 9-16 bracket! So even if we lose everything, we'll get 16th. 

My roommate has gotten sick of me, which is completely understandable since I've been singing Frozen's "Do you want to build a snowman" for hours. I've found the Dutch version too so I just play that on my laptop. She even locked me out of the hotel room and made me promise not to sing it ever. 

Teams Day 1

We are now playing against Italy. I played first and won 3-0. I'll keep updating!! Sorry, the wifi at the squash club wasn't working too well but anyway, we lost 2-1. We had to play England, the number one seed(all their players ended up in the top 4 of the individuals. We knew that we were going to lose so the number 2 girl played. I was pretty disappointed that I couldn't play the English girl (ranked one or two u19) even though I know I'd get destroyed. I just wanted to see how many points I could get and I mean I don't have anything to lose, no pressure. Tomorrow, we play Czech Republic and Sweden.

305 squash

Got shirts from 305 squash with my name on the back!!

Day 4

I lost to the Austrian girl who's exactly 5 years older than me(share the same bday). I played pretty well even though it was 3-1.

I'm going to watch the finals today as the individual event comes to an end. I had a great time hanging out with my team and made friends from all over Europe. The food wasn't very good so most of us just ate a loaf of bread with butter at lunch. Luckily, the hotel breakfast was amazing(great since it's the most important meal of the day) I'll be staying another few days or so for the team event. First we'll play Italy, England, Czech Republic, and Sweden!

Also, if you didn't get a chance to watch me play live(the 10 hour time difference doesn't exactly help), the finnish squash association has posted all the matches that were played on the glass court on youtube. Here is the link.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLncZYoSfh6nB7jPbK8d4cixGlqKhs5tfv

Day 3

Unfortunately, I lost 3-1 to the German girl; I took the third game. Going to  play an Austrian girl for 19th place tomorrow.

Day 1

I won my first match 3-1 against a girl from Switzerland!! I reached my goal of winning at least one match. Later, I played the number one girl under 19 from Spain. I played really well even though I lost 3-0. The game scores were 15-13, 11-7, 11-8. I am now in the 17-32 bracket!

Day 2

So far so good! I played a German girl and beat her 3-2 even though I played some ugly squash. I have to play a French girl in a few hours. 17-24 now! And I can play this tournament another five times!! 

I played really well and beat the French girl 3-1 so I'm now in the top 20!!!!

Playing another German girl next.

Arrived in Finland yesterday! I'm playing my match at 13:00 and there will be live streaming.
http://www.squash.fi/live/
(court 1)

Airport

Just arrived!!!

Party

My friends planned an awesome surprise going away party yesterday! One of them came up to me in the library and said that they were working on math homework in Ms. O's and wanted help. The lights were off and there were tons of balloons(and cake)!


I can't believe you guys did that all for me. <3 :)
That was an awfully(good) amount of chocolate syrup poured down my throat :P

Met the former world #1 and World Champion last week!!

Twitter

If you'd like, you can follow me on twitter.

@eleelenawa

European Girls U19 Individual Draw/1st Round

The draws are up!
Here is the link.
http://esf.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draw.aspx?id=8F7DF4B8-83DE-4A1B-AF31-7ACE2B7C40EC&draw=3

I have to play Marija Shpakova from Switzerland in the first round on the glass court. She's seeded 25/32. I'm pretty lucky that I don't have to play any of the top 8 seeds...

Tournament Links

Here are the links for the tournament

European Juniors Team and Individual
Helsinki, Finland

http://www.squash.fi/eitc-u19/

European Seniors Team
Riccione, Italy

http://europeansquash.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/tournament.aspx?id=8F55C925-429F-4E6D-A537-70659A0EAD24

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

The Plan

First I plan on going to The Netherlands, where I will stay with my grandparents for a few days and then go to Helsinki, Finland for the European Team Championships and Individual Championships Girls Under 19. The tournament will be about a week long, so I'll come back to the Netherlands and stay there for another few days. Afterwards, I'll go off to Riccione, Italy which is near San Merino, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Here, the European Senior Team Championships will take place! There will be a lot of professional players. I am really looking forward to it!

About Me

Hi,
My name is Elena and I am an 8th grader at Lakeside. I will turn 14 in September of 2014. My hobbies include reading, squash, eating, volleyball, badminton, and watching movies. This blog will focus mostly on squash, which I play competitively, and my trip through Europe in April and May of 2014.