Irina Falconi of the Boston Lobsters is a top young American rising up the WTA rankings. The 22-year-old, who will be blogging about her World TeamTennis adventures, is focused on several goals this July: (1) lead the Lobsters to the WTT Finals; (2) get more Twitter followers than Lady Gaga (tell 25 million of your friends to follow her @irinafalconi); and (3) remember where she parked her car in the VIP Lot at Park 'N Fly in Atlanta.
Just finished with a little Bob Marley and now I'm on to Mariah Carey. Huge shoutout to my trainer Kim Wilson. That's our girl. And Whitney Houston of course. RIP...
Wow, that's a kinda depressing ending to my beginning. But I promise it'll get exciting...:-)
Alright so Wednesday. Yet another match. And it was a match at home. So, obviously, we want to win every match that we play. I mean, I obviously want to win everything and be Federer-like, or Djokovic-esque, but hey, it's not going to happen 100 percent of the time. Even those guys lose. But anyway, getting sidetracked again.
Kansas City Explorers. That was the team to beat last night.
Wow, Queen's "We are the Champions" just came on. Ha, I like where my iPad's "head drive" is at...I tried to be clever there...Mmm...That almost worked...Maybe not.
Ok ok, so let's get to the day. So Wednesday was the day that my man Travis was coming from Kansas City. Oh the irony!
Once we got him all settled it was time for him to meet the crew. Everyone knows him as the pugilist. It's kind of an inside joke, but here's the gist of it: The other day when Bud (Boston coach Bud Schultz) was giving us our introductions, he decided to get a little bit more intimate. Instead of talking about our tennis successes, he decided to talk about other things.
For JM, he talked about the fact that he coaches my girl Coco Vandeweghe and she had reached the finals of a big tournament.
Eric and Carly were introduced as newlyweds.
And what did he say for me? Oh it was good.
"And last but not least ladies and gentlemen, we have Irina Falconi. And Irina—is dating a pugilist!"
For about 10 seconds, I couldn't talk because I was laughing so hard. But at the same time, I had NO IDEA what a PUGILIST was! So everyone looked at me with a dazed and confused look, so I just stared back and laughed.
Sure enough, we asked him what the heck it was. He looked at us as if we were joking but all of us were at a loss. He explained that the definition of a pugilist is a professional boxer.
So, from that day on, he's been asking people during our introductions whether they know what a pugilist is—no one under the age of 50 knew what the word meant. Bud's vernacular is kicking everybody's BUTT!
Once we got all settled with practice and everything, we went to visit tents to take some pictures with the people that make it all happen. And like the weatherman had predicted, it started to drizzle a little bit. The match was postponed to 7:15. Not a big deal really but hey, it changes the time of when I have to make my perfect bun, alright?
Whilst getting some food, the team got together and for some reason we started talking about the pronunciation of specific words. We also talked about how some call soft drinks as soda, and some refer to it as pop...to say the least, the conversation was pure fun.
Then the match came.
When I tell you that it couldn't have been any closer—I am not exaggerating. I mean, Supertiebreaker, Overtime? Oh yeah, remember when I talked about loving to play under pressure? Yup, I definitely did last night.
It came down to me in the last set...
I didn't win the set, but when it came to the Supertiebreaker, I got off to a strong lead, and got us a win of 20-19 at home. Talk about NITTY GRITTY?! Pretty sure I saw a twinkle in (Boston team owner) Bahar's eyes. Just saying...
Oh! And let me tell you a little bit about the name of the blog—Eye of the Lobster
.
So in the last set, it's super close and in between points, the DJ decides to play "Eye of the Tiger." So sure enough, right before I'm about to serve, this little 8-year-old boy shouts at the top of his lungs "COME ON IRINA! EYE OF THE LOBSTER!"
It.
Was.
EPIC!
Oh and of course we had to go to Friday's afterwards! Even though it was Wednesday...And per usual—it was an epic team dinner. From heels, to catheters, to horoscopes, to...
Anywhoozer! New York tomorrow!!!!! Going back to my roots to get in that little empire state of mind. Holla!!
—IF
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