Greetings from the humidity of Rio this clear evening. The big swell is calming now but the mist from crashing waves and the offshore breeze still blows and freshens the lungs. It was a beautiful walk on the boardwalk after the gym today and I feel blessed to be in the situation I am in. I spoke to my lovely sister today after she completed her final exam of her collegiate life and she too is in a wonderful position!!!
We played a few training games against Estonia yesterday afternoon and proved to ourselves that we have the capability of matching top ranked international teams. The Estonias are a veteran team and bring a lot of poise and confidence to the table; something we haven't confirmed in ourselves yet. We played three matches and came out on the bottom of all of them in terms of score but drew some valuable experiences. As our coach Xendaco has explained to us many times, we shouldn't look on the other side of the net for a winning solution; the answers lie with us. With so much time training, we haven't accepted our improvements and ability to win games we couldn't in 2008. Each match we had a two or three point lead around 14 but gave the game away with silly amateur errors caused by anxiousness. Throughout the rest of this week we will concentrate on keeping calm during tense times and on executing the skills we have been programed to perform flawlessly!
It is officially a week out from our first tournament in Brazilia, Brazil and we couldn't be more excited. The main draw/qualification list isn't out yet so we aren't sure where we are in the standings but we are hoping enough teams pull out for us to have a direct spot into the main draw!
We will be playing another game against the Estonians tomorrow, a game against a Brazilian team Thursday and are hoping to get in with the Ces brothers from France before the weekend and our departure for the event!
Here is our most recent video production with footage from our training game against Germany last Friday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awra4Lzeogs
Enjoy and cheers from Brazil!!!
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