May 8th, 2025, 1:22 p.m.

Just finished up for the day. Got to the quarters and I had a really grindy match with Shannon Pretorius. She played extremely well. Her passes were spot on, and she rarely missed one. I thought I did a good job of covering the net, just need to probably add a drop volley to my game. But something to work on for the future, always something to learn every single time. I wish her good luck in the rest of the matches. Big shout out again to Jack and Richard for coaching me. They really helped me through that match, and it probably wouldn't have been as close if they weren't there.

I'm probably going to - from now on to the rest of the day - I'm going to play some mixed with Chris Haworth to get ready for tomorrow. It's really good, for me at least, to practice after singles and kind of reset my mind, especially after a tough loss like that. If I just go back to the hotel room, I'll probably just keep thinking about it, which just kind of makes it worse. So I always try to play a little bit, get some reps in, think about the next day. That's the beauty of pickleball, there's always another day. Then I'm going to go to dinner with Jack and his dad later, and try to get a good night's rest tonight.

‍

May 8th. 2025, 11:30 a.m.

Just got done with my first match of the day. It went pretty well, definitely some things to improve on. I was lucky, I had Jack and Richard there to help coach me after they had just played each other, which really they do a great job of either talking me down when I get a little too angry with myself, but also just telling me what shots to hit, which is great. Helen played very well. She made a lot of really good shots. She does a really good job of getting into the net. It was basically a battle of who would get to the net first and then who could pass in the tight moment. So glad to come out on top of that one. I don't know exactly who I play yet, but I think I have a little bit of time.

May 8th, 2025, 9:35 a.m.

Hey, it's Amanda Hendry, this is my first blog. I'm super excited to do it! I got to drive here to Cincinnati, actually, which was really nice, because I'm based in Nashville right now, so it was only like a four-hour drive. So it's always nice to do that, versus having to get to the airport and fly. I'm staying with my boyfriend, Jack Foster, and his dad, who likes to travel to a bunch of the events. He plays the 3.0 division, I believe, so we got to watch him a little bit, which is nice.

Every singles day, when the men start before the women, I'll watch one of Jack's matches, and then I'll go warm up. Right now I'm watching Jack play my good friend Richard, who's also one of Jack's best friends, so it's always a little awkward having to watch your boyfriend play one of your best friends. But it's also usually a friendly match, so that makes it easy too. Jack's actually struggling with a little bit of an ankle injury right now, so he's trying to work through it. I'm really proud of him for playing today. He's just had a little bit of a rough year, he had a knee injury in the beginning of the year and then now the ankle thing, but hopefully he'll recover from this pretty fast.

I'm excited to play some singles today! Looking forward to mixed with Chris Hayworth and women's with Christine Maddox. I'm playing with the two Chrises and just really excited to get out there.