The preperations: pt 1: Nimes, France

For what you might ask!!??

For the nationals

With what you wonder?

With training with legends, playing the world open and professional international tournaments.

For some reason, the nationals is my highlight of the year. Its the tournament I fear to play all year, and prepare best for. Some people will aim for my head after hearing me say this, as I should prepare just as well for every tournament and should really apply more pressure on myself playing the big tournaments as well as for my nationals.

The individual norwegian national squash championships is the only tournament I have come out on top in over the last years, and there is more pressure every year. It is the toughest mental struggle every year, and being the top dog is so much worse than being the underdog, like for example during the world open.

I will take you through my preparations leading up to the "NM 2013" from the start of January until it starts in the end of January.

Part 1: Nimes, France

5000K Open du Gard

Kimmie in the quallie, Friday 04/01/2013,  13.30 vs Mark Fuller (ENG)

Trying to make everything as cheap as possible, this time we fly with Ryanair. A company known for Male (boooo) stuard(esses??), little gasoline, and cheeky fotnotes... Oh, and its supposed to be cheap too. At every corner they are trying to hustle you, but I was aware of this, and think I got through it well, with only paying double the price listed online.

Travelling to Nimes takes me first to Marseille, where I have to locate a bus to take me to the trainstation in Centrum of Marseille. Here a train leaves for Nimes twice a day. Naturally I land in Marseille 20.30 in the evening, and so I need the back up solution fo travelling to Avignon first. After getting on the wrong train once, I find a more lightly train to take me to Avignon. This trip takes a while. I make sure not to fall asleep so I dont end up in Luxembourg. Getting to Avignon at 23.00, I immediately get chased out of the station as no more trains run for the night, and end up crashing at tge local hotel..... I already booked the one in Nimes for the night...... why do this keep happening to me? Bad luck? or stupidity? stay tuned for the next episode!!!! Positive side: The view over the castle from the hotelroom

Me and Mark shared a good long match in Prague in September 2012. It then ended 3-1 to Mark, after long and grueling rallies. I knew he was a grinding English player, who which you can never say die. I knew that to be able to beat him, I needed to play smarter squash.

We could not hear the score announced from the referee, and I frankly did not care, but tried to focus on point by point. My hitting was not that comfortable in the first game, but I played patches of good squash. In general, I was hitting better than before. I was moving well, but due to too narrow crosscourts I was brutally punished and had to give away the first game.

The second game followed a similar pattern, but I found a bit more confidence in some shots, but still made some silly shots when I was on top. I still competed well, and played some good rallies. It is just not consistent enough. My couch for the day Mr.Weenink told me a good point about thinking about where to hit the ball instead of how to hit it. My focus has been on how to hit it for over a year now, so it is difficult to shake that out of your brain. My length was better in the third game, and midway I pulled away with the game. My serves were good and my dropshots more effective.

In the 4^th game I was feeling a little bit slow, and without me seeing it, my lengths fell short. Doing this kept me under pressure and over the course of that little time frame, cost me the game. It is always good to have someone analyzing your game, so you can learn from it.

Overall not dissatisfied. It is things I need to work on and things that can be improved. Most of all I am glad I am healthy again and that my ankle feels good enough to play such a match.