Hawaii Day 6

Hi Duke Tennis Fans!

Taylor Swift’s “Red” started off the day today at 8:00am sharp. It was the first day that I had to be woken up by an alarm, as opposed to the consistent 7am wake up time thanks to jet lag. I have to admit that Taylor, without a doubt, beats out jet lag for which one I would rather be wakened by. Similar to yesterday, we had our team breakfast at the incredibly difficult-to-choose-from-buffet due to the overwhelming amount of appealing options. I attempted to mix it up with some peanut butter and toast, but the veggie egg-white omelet persisted to be incorporated. Following breakfast, Ester and I did our routine study session for two hours (minus the occasional venting of something we’ve stumbled upon that we can’t seem to understand). Ester works on her pre-med math requirement while I study finance – also known as preparing for internship interviews in which a finance foundation that I do not quite have down yet, IS NECESSARY.

We again remained the same as yesterday and picked up Wolfgang Puck for our pre-match meal. Most of us ordered the same thing as well, which makes me wonder whether we are a superstitious team after all. Followed by the warm up, I was less nervous to perform our new cheer that we do prior to going on the courts for matches. Thanks to Rachel, we have definitely improved our cheer from last year (although the coaches do not seem to agree yet – but they will), where we have a multi-layered chant as opposed to our “go duke” one from the last two years. If anything, just come out to the beginning of our home matches to witness it. Anyways back to the match, Jamie had said yesterday that we would be better today than we were yesterday, which was true. We swept with a win at 7-0 in just over three hours, where everyone stayed focused and played to win. I must say the wind could have had some impact on this result, which was down from the 40mph gusts that we experienced the days before. Regardless, undefeated in every position was a great ending to our matches here at the beautiful island of Oahu.

The day winded down with take out from P.F. Chang’s on the pool deck, and there were of course no complaints about this eating arrangement. At the end of dinner, we discussed our outing tomorrow morning that begins at 5:30am... Apparently the sharks feed then so that’s when we’re going...Yup, shark diving. Thinking about a closed metal cage with ten foot sharks surrounding me doesn’t exactly sit well, but at least my teammates and coaches convinced me that they will not be the great white sharks that I was imagining were going to eat me. Regardless of the wake up time – I’m actually looking forward to hearing “Red” again – and the fears, we’re all very excited about the trip to North Shore. It’s not every day you get to swim around with sharks! But if no one reports back with how it went, you can assume that it truly was a “once in a lifetime” opportunity and the 100% safe reassurance must not have been quite so accurate. Just kidding! Those are my fears talking, I’m going to head to bed before the fears kill my excitement.

Stay tuned for how cool the shark diving and North Shore’s twenty-foot waves will be!           

With DWT love

- Mary