Bally blogs - Israel part two

Elena Baltacha, part of the Aegon GB Fed Cup Team, blogs from Eilat, Israel, where GB are competing in the Fed Cup by BNP Paribas. Here's part two...

What a bizarre day this was. One of the five times a year it rains in Eilat happened today just as we finished our morning hit at 9am at the courts. The poor Bosnians had barely begun their hit, (they were still in the service boxes), when it came teaming down.

At around 9:40 we decided to sit it out back at the hotel, had another breakfast, as we were up so early (before seven) to start the day. It rained solidly until about 12:30, stopped for a while, but started up again at 1 and we knew it was going to be a tough day then. 

We passed the time in the team room joking, Laura and Jo and some of the others took to Wii Dancing (check out the video on the right hand side), we read some magazines and joined in some typical girlie chat which shall remain in the four walls of that room. I asked Flo Pietzsch, our Strength & Conditioning coach a couple of questions for this blog to give you guys an idea what goes on behind the scenes in our team to illustrate the great work they do, hopefully you find that of interest. (Again, eyes right for that video).

Then we had some lunch, Judy went off to the team Captain’s meeting at 2pm and when she came back, we knew by the look on her face that the news wasn’t good.  The morning session including us had been cancelled, which meant we would be starting a day later (all our matches remain at 9:30am local time Thursday through Saturday), and now means we will be here till Sunday night, so all of our travel plans have to move forward by one day. 

Judy looking unimpressed, must be due to the weather

Of course then the sun came out – sod’s law, right?  Judy and Leon decided to have a practice session at the hotel at 5pm, that included some fun drills and games that brought smiles to all our faces.  The best was probably ‘Pass the Racquet,’ where three on each side of the court can only hit one shot and have to pass the racquet in rotation between the three of us.  That got our blood going and then it was team dinner at 7pm, more Pictionary (this time the girls team killed the boys – yeah!) and bed early in preparation for an early start tomorrow.

Luckily the forecast is good for the rest of the week as now we’re dying to start and get this show on the road.  Wish us luck for tomorrow and the rest of the week.

G’nite,

Bally x