I am madly and passionately in love with tennis.

Today was one of the best days of my entire life. I feel like I have used that sentence a lot in the past, but have never meant it as strongly as I do right now. (By the way I took all of the pictures posted in this blog post so you can actually get an idea how close I was to the players)

We went to the tennis center early this morning in the expectation of watching our ITF players in their matches and just helping out with final preparations for the tournament, since the qualifying rounds for women start tomorrow.

The day began as a very laid back and relaxing one. We spent about two hours watching Zach's singles match, which was very entertaining, and it was exciting that he ended up winning. Meanwhile, Emily, who works in the player's lounge, was able to give us some insider information on what times and where the marquee players would be getting their practices in. I saw that Melanie Oudin was schedule to practice on one of the outdoor courts, so I decided to wander over there to watch her as she practiced. Since she was on one of the smaller courts, I was one of the only people that was standing by, and I was able to get right next to the court so that I was standing about five feet away from her. I ended up staying and watching her entire practice, and when she left with her coach, I quickly approached her in order to ask her some questions. I thought it was really funny that she was so shy and intimidated by me, but I guess she's just a normal 18 year old girl who happens to be really good at tennis. I am absolutely ecstatic that I was able to interview her since it was my first real interview of a well known athlete! Jim was even nearby with his camera and was able to take a few shots for me.

I headed back to the media center to type up an article about Oudin, where a few other people from my group were also working on stories. I'm not sure if my story will be published or not since the Chinese pick which articles to put on their website, but it was an amazing journalistic experience and opportunity nonetheless.

We hung around for a few more hours before heading over to watch Djokovic practice on Center Court. We were able to sneak down to the floor for a little bit to get a closer look and I got a bunch of pictures of him stretching and warming up. He and his coaches kept giving us strange stares since they were probably confused why we were the only people who had access to get that close to him while he warmed up. We then moved to the front row of the V.I.P. seats so we could watch the rest of his practice. Djokovic practiced with another famous player, Ivan Lubachich, so it was extremely entertaining to watch. I have never seen such amazing tennis played up close, and it was only a practice session! Djokovic, Lubachich, and all of their coaches seemed to be having such a good time, joking and laughing while they played. You could tell how much they really love the sport of tennis and why they have dedicated their lives to it. At the end of their practice, Matt dared Jim to yell "IMPRESSIONS" really loudly down to Djokovic, since he is well known for his funny impressions of other tennis stars. Djokovic looked up at us with an amused expression on his face (he was probably surprised there was someone watching him that actually spoke English) and started laughing and said, "No, no, jet lag," in choppy English. I'm going to be honest...he is pretty adorable and I am likely to fall deeper in love with him over the next 10 days.

After his practice session ended, Matt, Eric, Jim, Emily and I headed back to the restaurant we ate at last night. It was so good and there were so many options to choose from that I could probably eat there the rest of my trip. We hadn't planned on going out afterwards, but all of us had so much energy since the day had been so thrilling, that we decided to head back to HouHai, the outdoor bar and restaurant area around the lake. The taxi driver dropped us off at a completely different location than the last time we went, and at first we were a little bit turned around. Then, we ran across the entrance to a hutong, which is an ancient narrow alleyway that was originally formed by the connection of homes, but is now made up of residences, restaurants, small shops, and bars. Beijing is really well known for the presence of hutongs, but they are becoming more and more rare to find since they are being slowly demolished to make room for more modern homes and buildings. I was really really impressed by how beautiful, intricate, and ancient all of the buildings were here. We found a small flight of stairs and followed it upwards to find a huge rooftop bar full of couches and people drinking while playing cards. We ended up staying here for awhile, and they even gave us a deck of cards to play so we fit in with all of the locals.

After the rooftop bar, we stopped by a chocolate bar to buy an assortment of different chocolates and walked around to several shops before finding another outdoor bar with couches. A small group of Chinese men around our age took a seat with us and ended up hanging out and chatting with us for the rest of the night. They were SO friendly and outgoing, even going inside to grab a Chinese-Engligh dictionary at one point to teach us some more vocabulary. The weather outside was gorgeous and the company was incredible; it's not everyday you make a group of friends in a foreign country. It really was the cherry on top to the perfect day and today will forever be one of my greatest memories.