Alec Adamson's Tennis Journey

This week was the 2nd Futures in a row at the same site in Portugal. Last week's tournament finished on Thursday when I lost in the 2nd round so I had a quick turnaround to play in the 1st round of Qualifying on Saturday.                                                            Beloura Tennis Academy As luck would have it, I played the same guy in the 1st round as I did in the 1st round last week. After winning in straight sets last week, it was a lot closer this week. I started off the match strong against the #14 seed from Portugal (1200 ATP) to get a couple of breaks to win the first set 6-2. The second set was closer as I had some chances to break in the beginning of the 2nd set and we stayed on serve until 4-4. I got broke serving at 4-4 in a tough game before my opponent served out the set after saving a few break points. I had a poor start to the 3rd set as I got broken twice to go down 1-4 in the 3rd set. These were very tough conditions to play in and I strug

After finishing up a great month in France training and playing four money tournaments, I left for Lisbon, Portugal last week. I played in the 1st of 3 Futures tournaments in Sintra, a small town about 20 minutes from Lisbon. This Futures tournament had a 64 Qualifying draw so you have to win 3 matches to qualify for the main draw. I played my first round of qualifying last Saturday and played the #12 seed from Portugal, Goncalo Falcao. I won my match 6-3, 6-0 by playing well and serving strong, as it was a good win as he is ranked around 1200 in the world. On Sunday I played the 2nd round of Qualifying against Duncan Mugabe, who was from the country of Georgia and had an ATP ranking of 1776. I started off strong and won the first set 6-2 by getting 2 breaks. However, in the beginning of the 2nd set, my opponent started to play better and more aggressive with his forehand and his serve. I got down 0-3 (0-40) but managed to get a clutch hold and not go down 2 breaks. I got a br

This was another tournament around Montpellier, in a small city called Palavas-les-Flots. The tournament was on hard court, but it was a very fast surface and not the traditional smooth hard court. The courts were also very high bouncing. In my first match, I played a lefty who was older (around 30-35) but used to be a really good player. He was rated a 0, and had a good lefty serve and good baseline game. I started off serving well and lead 5-4 in the 1st set but couldn't serve out the set as he played a few good games. After losing the 1st set 5-7, I played well the 2nd set to win it 6-2. This match was not without controversy, as he made some very tough calls in important moments. But after going up 3-0 in the 3rd set, my opponent started to hit every shot as hard as he could and I won the 3rd set 6-0 in 20 minutes. I had a quick turnaround playing at 10 AM the next morning after finishing at 10:30 the night before. I played another lefty, with this opponent be

This tournament was played at a really cool club, Tennis Club La Grande Motte, that had around 30 courts and it was only 5 min from the beach. It was played on hard court, which was a change after playing the last two tournaments on clay. The French system is very unique with players feeding-in to the tournament at different times which makes the matches more competitive. I started on Saturday afternoon and played a French player with a 0 rating, and played a really strong first set and won the match 6-1, 6-4. It was a better match for me as I served a lot better and was hitting my approach shots a lot better. I played the semifinals of the tournament on Sunday morning and played a French player who plays #1 on his team for a D2 school. He was a lefty who had a good lefty serve and a good forehand. I needed to play more aggressive this match and came to the net more to finish points and attacked the 2nd serve return. I won the match 6-1, 6-3 to advance to the finals. In