The one week blog of Maria for Sony Ericsson WTA Tour website. Photo by Bárbara Galiza (fiercetennis.wordpress.com).

Hello from Bastad

I arrived here on Saturday. It’s actually my first time in Sweden. The set-up here is great. The hotel is right next to the club and the courts, so it’s just a one minute walk. We don’t need to take a car to the tournament each day. Also, from my window I can see the beach. It was the first thing I saw when I came up here. I like it very much when everything is close together. My first impression was that this would be a super tournament!

I haven’t really seen the city yet. Because everything is so close together, I’ve just been practicing and spending time at the hotel mostly. I went for a walk on the beach too, and I’ve jogged in the forest next to the hotel too. It’s just beautiful here. On one side of the hotel it’s the sea, on the other side it’s a forest and nice houses. There’s one very big, beautiful house I saw too. The weather here is perfect too - sometimes there’s five or 10 minutes of rain but then it’s back to blue skies right away so for most of the time it’s perfect!

I had my first match today against a qualifier and I won, 6-0, 6-4. The first set seems easy from the score but every game was tight, so I was a bit lucky to win it like that. In the second set I was down 4-1, so I was happy to recover and win it in two sets. I really didn’t want to play a third set! For my first match back on clay I was happy. We just came from grass. Actually, something funny happened in my first practice session here. When someone serves to you on grass, you take one step and you’re there; on clay there’s so much kick, you need three steps. So the first time I practiced here I mis-hit my first return and told my father, “It looks like I’m still playing on grass”, and he said, “You don’t have to tell me, I can see it!”

I brought some nice Russian magazines and crosswords with me, also a set of DVDs, in English it’s called “The Tudors”. There are two sets of 10 episodes and I finished the first 10 episodes here already, but the second set is still back at home! I’m very disappointed I didn’t bring that with me. It’s so interesting, it’s about the king and queen of England, and I’m really enjoying learning about how they lived so many years ago. It’s one of my favorite shows right now.

Tonight we had the player party - it was one of the best I’ve ever been to! They organized it so well, I’m really happy I went. There were some things that made it really unique. First they brought all the players to one room and were teaching us how to dance. Then, after they brought some really nice food out, they brought out some professional dancers, a man and a Russian woman, who were great. Then there was a guy who was doing tricks with a soccer ball, some unbelievable tricks. He had to be a pro. Then two singers who were really good. The best thing came at the end. There was a magician who was doing some really funny tricks with some of the players, and Caroline Wozniacki had to kiss him for him to do the final trick, and when she did, he pulled a card out of his mouth! It was really funny.

There was one other funny thing I’ve done here… I did an interview with a men’s fashion magazine and they were asking me how I felt about men who take a lot of time to make themselves look nice, and then they asked me about men who shave their legs… I said for me, it’s not a very manly thing to do! Haha. I know they’re trying to look very nice but for me, I guess men should just have hairy legs. It’s the first time I’ve ever been asked something like this!

I have my second match tomorrow, against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. I played her once before, on hardcourt in Dubai this year, and I lost that match to her. This time it’s clay, so it’ll be a different match. Hopefully I can get revenge. That’s why it’s always nice to play someone you lost to, so you can figure out different things and try and do better the next time.

I’m going to bed soon… I’ll talk to you all again tomorrow

Maria