Alec Adamson's Tennis Journey

After arriving back in Montpellier about 10 days ago, I have been training with 2 of my teammates from UC Davis and another player from Cal Lutheran. The first week we trained on red clay to get ready for the first tournament on clay which took some getting used to and learning how to slide. It has been great to work with a good coach, Jean-Michel, who has coached a lot of great players. This is the town that we are staying in and it's called Viols-le-Fort and is a small town about 30 minutes north of Montpellier. I am staying in an apartment with the 3 other guys which has been fun so far. This is the site of the tournament as the club had only 2 clay courts which they used for the tournament. This club had high-quality clay and it was a lot of fun to play on. The great thing about the French system is that the tournament is a feed in so there are many different brackets that feed in. This is the final bracket and I won my first match against a good French player

After arriving back in Montpellier for a few days of training, I took a 2.5-hour train ride to Grenoble, France. The tournament was in Uriage, which is a small town outside of Grenoble on the Eastern side of France near Switzerland. The place where I stayed was on the mountainside and there is a ski resort that is about 10 minutes away. This tournament was a $15,000 Futures and most of the players were from France, and I was the only one from the U.S. My match was the last match of the day and it was on center court with around 100 people watching. This was my first tournament on red clay and I played a player from Argentina who has played a lot on clay. I lost the first set in a tiebreak 6-7 (3-7) in a set where I had a lot of chances to get a lead but couldn't quite pull ahead. I played a good second set where I won 6-1 while playing more aggressive and serving well. The third set was very close and I definitely had my opportunities but couldn't convert. 

After arriving in France last weekend, the first tournament I played was on an island off the Southern tip of France. The city Ajaccio is a huge tourist destination and probably one of the most beautiful islands in the world. A pretty incredible place to play tennis! This tournament was a $25,000 + Hospitality Futures which is the biggest size of a Futures tournament and the main draw featured players ranked 260-1300 in the world. There are around 2100 players who are ranked in the world and have an ATP ranking. For everyone else below 1300 and those without a ranking including myself, you must qualify and win 2 matches to advance to the main draw. I won my first round of qualifying 7-6, 6-2 against a French player and then lost 3-6, 3-6 in the last round of qualifying to another guy from France.  Then I played in the main draw of doubles but unfortunately lost in 3 sets to the #3 seeds from France. It was a close match 6-3, 2-6, 3-10 and the other team playe