Osaka had a different vibe then Tokyo. I felt that it wasn’t as open to foreigners as I would have liked. Do you know how hard it was to try and have a drink with a geisha…Kidding, but I definitely felt a touch out of place this week. We stayed at the Ana Crown plaza which was a beautiful hotel until you arrived in your room or lack there of. I felt as if I was back in my dorm room. All it was missing was a poster of Jenna Jameson. Ah, the good old days. The good thing about the hotel was it was right in the middle of down town Osaka which made it very easy for us all to wonder around after our day was done instead of loosing our minds in the rooms. The shopping in Japan in general is just insane let alone each of the cities. It’s not only the selection of clothing as well as the amount of it they have at your disposal. It’s a shoppers dream come true. The city comes to life every evening with plenty of restaurants bars and clubs to satisfy what ever your craving. I shall leave the rest to your imaginations ;)

The facility was only minutes away from the hotel which is always convenient for the players and coaches. The tournament was very well organized and run but due to the very high prices in tickets sales, there weren’t as many spectators as usual. We had beautiful sunny skies each day which made it very enjoyable for us to practice and play matches each day and obviously my shirt was off each of those days grabbing a few more days of color before we head back to the cold north we call home. We’ve been training extremely hard each day keeping up with our on and off court training regimen. We were able to get full court practices, which obviously is much better then the half court days we sometimes get at other events. Aleks was fired up and ready to go first round when she played Sophie Ferguson of Australia. Aleks definitely showed why she was the 3^rd seed hitting some incredible forehand and backhand winners not to mention some great net play taking the match 6-1, 7-5 moving her into the second round against the new up and comer Kai-Chen Chang from Tai-Pei who recently just beat worlds number 1, Danira Safina. It was a bit of a shaky match as Aleks had never played her before and it’s always more difficult playing someone who is young and talented with less experience that doesn’t really have a game plan but more just swings out on every ball making it very hard to figure out a style of play, however, Aleks did a great job of fighting and making sure Chang played one more ball each rally which typically resulted in some sort of error. Experience paid off and Aleks took a close match 7-5, 7-6. I know I said that Aleks and Caroline would face off against each other again in the future but I didn’t think it was going to be a couple tournaments later. This time they faced off in the quarter finals on centre court with a bunch of clowns as lines men. Aleks started the match off great giving herself a 2-0 lead but Caroline being Caroline came back to win the set 6-2… Caroline, your lucky you are cute ;) The second set was a great fight from both girls with some unbelievable exchanges. Caroline seemed to get the short end of the stick on calls that set which set her off a bit and gave the momentum to Aleks to win the set in a tie break. Aleks did a great job at staying very composed and earned that set but as Wozniacki returned from a short bathroom break to start the third she quickly found out that sometimes staying composed is not enough to win a match like this. Caroline came out swinging and was determined to not let those line calls bother her anymore. Aleks went down 4-0 only to come back to 4-2 and have her chances to break back again but wasn’t able to convert and lost 6-2. Usually we tend to enjoy sticking around but as we have been in Asia for a few weeks and the Hotel rooms being as small as circus freaks, we are anxious to bounce on to Moscow to enjoy some of that Kremlin cup.

Stay tuned as the adventure takes us to Russia next…