| Wes Moodie: The USA Trip has just begun |
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| Friday, 20 March 2009 16:10 |
 The long USA trip has begun. A lot of players complain that they have to be on tour for up to a month and only play two tournaments! Some players who lose early in Indian Wells even fly back to home to Europe for a week before heading back to Miami. It does seem a bit ridiculous to me to but apparently they do need four weeks to complete two tournaments. My not-so-good Indian Wells record continued and we lost first round to a very in form Llodra and Stepanek. Jeff and I had decided to split up so it’s always going to be difficult to produce your best tennis when the partnership is ending. Indian Wells is a nice tournament – everything is quite close and there are a few hotels to choose from. I always stay in the Hyatt. They have nice big rooms and are quite family friendly. The one thing I don’t understand about these fancy hotels in America is this: Everything has a charge! Even a toll free number usually has a $1 connection fee. How do they justify that?! Breakfast is never included and you have to fork out $25+ for a bowl of Cheerio’s, a coffee and a boiled egg. The “special” room rate (which the tournament thankfully covers) was $215 – much cheaper than most people would get it for. Internet is definitely not free and they add on a nice charge for any movies and laundry is outrageously priced. The room rate is very expensive and you get nothing included. Contrast that with a cheap “road side” hotel. You still get the two XL king size beds, some very mediocre décor, (and admittedly some cigarette burnt carpets) but free internet, free breakfast, free local and toll free numbers and sometimes even free movie channels. To me this is a very odd phenomenon indeed. Pay more and get less: It’s a motto that doesn’t make much business sense to me but interestingly enough it seems to be one that works. So Nalbandian almost beat Nadal. I saw a few highlights and still can’t believe that players do not cover Nadal’s backhand cross-court passing shot. I played him once, picked it up early and covered it for the rest of the match. So when I see players getting passed time and time again by Nadal running into his backhand corner and whipping it cross court for an “amazing” winner, I can only shake my head. OK, I had no idea where his forehand was going and mostly just watched him hitting winners passed me but at least by covering the backhand crosscourt pass I had two set points in the 2nd set and pushed him all the way in the 3rd set. I’m on my way to Florida on Saturday. Unfortunately I’m on antibiotics so I hope to be better soon. Will write from there… Wes |
