Hey all,

I had a lot of fun in St Louis. The team was very hospitable and friendly, and the city was exciting. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my best week on the court.  Now I’m in Indianapolis, however, and the Samurai are all trickling into town. This should all add up to a successful and thrilling tournament here where I am the third seeded player behind Dmitry Tursunov and Dudi Sela. My first match is tonight against Arnaud Clement, and if I manage to survive that tough battle, I get a chance at a rematch with the man who bested me in the finals at Newport, fellow American Rajeev Ram. Wish me luck!

Sam

Hey all,

I’ve just completed my first tournament since Wimbledon and it turned out to be a great start to my summer in America. I made it to my first grass final ever before eventually losing to red hot lucky loser Rajeev Ram in the final. Along the way, despite losing several days to inclement weather, I played some of my best tennis, even dumping two time defending champion Fabrice Santoro in the semi-finals. All of this has the arrow pointing up for a terrific summer leading up to the US Open!

Off the court, Newport was a lot of fun, and it was tough to say goodbye. The food was tremendous, the people friendly and the activities off the court seemed like an endless flow of entertainment. Early in the week there was a player game of wiffle ball, there were tons of enormous yachts to be gawked at, tennis golf to

SunTrike in Newport

be played while waiting for the courts to dry, and Dan and I took a tour of the island in a very cool three-wheeled, two-seated scooter. On Sunday, after my tough match in the finals, Dan and I gathered up all the ball kids and play vortex football on the courts for a couple of hours. The kids were really good sports and I hope they all got a lot of amusement out of it after all the hard work they put in during the week.

Now we are in St. Louis for some World Team Tennis with the St. Louis Aces! Our first day was jam packed. We got to meet St. Louis Cardinals General Manager John Mozeliak, who was incredible. He was extremely kind to take out time from his busy day and have a chat with Dan and myself. He is a big tennis fan and seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say. Hopefully we’ll be able to schedule a time this week when I can hit with him. That night, we got to watch Prince Fielder win the Home Run Derby from great seats at Busch Stadium, and after that went to Ryan Howard’s bash for his charity. Tonight look for us behind home plate at the All-Star Game, weather permitting.  All of this fun leads up to my first match with the Aces on Wednesday. St. Louis is shaping up to be another great stop on my trip this summer.

Until Next Time,

Sam