Team Canada Prepares for Battle as Draw is Set of Individuals

I am afraid to say that I have not yet mastered Spanish and communication has been difficult with the locals, but I am happy to report that we are all starting to find our comfort zones here in Ambato as we start to explore the city and get to know the one English speaking hotel staff very well. Monica has been very helpful in our efforts to find the clubs, food and money.

Last night the team headed over to club Tangurahau, one of two clubs that will be used for the championships. The hotel was very helpful in arranging their shuttle to take us tot he club. The club was very nice and situated in a very nice part of the city. The courts were located at the back of the complex in their own building. There was adequate seating at the two courts, but the courts themselves appear to be a little hard, with non sprung floors. The players had a hit at the club for an hour or so and then the team returned to the hotel to call it a night.

Friday was a very nice day here in Ecuador with temperatures reaching 27 degrees Celsius. The team went for a hit in the morning to the second club, Ambato Tennis Club, which I am happy to report has one sprung floor, although the courts appear to be a little on the warm side. Like the courts at Club Tangurahau the courts at the Ambato Tennis Club are in a building all by themselves. The players had a hit for an hour or so and the team headed back to the hotel to regroup before lunch.

Tara, Alex, Samantha, David, Andrew, Yvon and I decided to head out and explore the city to find a restaurant. Monica, our English speaking hotel person, was very helpful in directing us to a suitable location. We took the 10 minute walk down the street and had a decent lunch where David showed off his Spanish speaking abilities, which apparently he had been hiding up to this point.

From lunch several of the athletes decided to take a walk through the city to see what they can find. For me, I was on a mission to withdraw money as the cash I brought was running low. Not being much of a worldy traveler I has assumed this would not be that difficult of a task, in the end it was and took most of the day, however, I do know the Ecuador banking system very well now and managed to get money. Tara, Samantha and Andrew managed to find their way around the city pretty well and returned to the hotel with a list of sites they had seen including a very large Cathedral and a nice mall.

Upon arrival back from lunch Shauna and Mike had arrived and reported that their trip from Quito was smooth. They had arrived just in time to head back to the club for an afternoon hit, the last before the championships begin.

The championship agenda officially got underway at 6pm for the technical meeting, where the draw was to be done for the individual event. In true South American fashion the meeting started at 7pm. The meeting took about an hour and in the end we had a draw. The Canadian's start times are as follows:

Andrew Schnell - 9:00am vs Javier Castilla (COL)
Alex Norman (5-8 seed) - 11:15am vs Karol Gonzalez (COL)
Tara Mullins (5-8 seed) - 12:15pm vs Maria Pettucci (ARG)
Samantha Cornett - 12:45pm vs Nicole Espinosa (ECU)
David Phillips (4th) - 3:45pm vs Josue Recinos (ESA)
Mike Reid (5-8 seed) - 3:45pm vs Carlos Caballero (PAR)

I have hard copies of the draw, but nothing electronic yet, I will try and get them up asap. They will also be available here at some point: http://www.squashflash.com/Torneos/Ecuador/XIX%20PanAm-09/XIX%20PanAm-News.html

After the technical meeting we went for a late dinner and a much deserved cervasa. While the officials had their meeting. Upon leaving the officials meeting Denise notified us that she would be reffing doubles, something she has never done before. It appears there were very few officials with doubles officiating experience ... being prepared for anything at Panamerican Championships goes for officials too.

Tomorrow everything gets underway, something the team has been looking forward to since we arrived. I will try and keep everything as up to the moment as possible with twitter (http://www.twitter.com/squashcanada) and will hopefully have some video highlights to share tomorrow night.

That's all for now,

Aaron