USA in the Autumn 2012 #10

After  a week training and coaching with Todd Martin Greg said he was hitting the ball sweetly, the best he had all year, and was looking forward taking to the court for some tournament play. Then, with three days to go with Todd, Greg experienced an intense pain in his right elbow. Out of nowhere, with no obvious impact or strain, his elbow was suddenly very sore and after trying to flex the arm and hit away the pain, Greg was forced to stop and treat the elbow with ice. They had to adjourn the training for the day and after a good's night's rest Greg hoped it would be better but it was not to be. He was forced to rest the arm and not hit for the next two days and headed for the next tournament in Charlottesville, Florida.

Charlottesville Street scene

Greg agonized on whether his elbow was better or still too sore to compete. He eventually decided to try and play and signed in for qualifying.
His 1st round opponent was 23 year-old Hawaiin Dennis Lajola, currently ranked 600, near his recent high rank of 535 in September this year. Lajola has recently finished a four year stint at college in Hawaii where he was the Western Conference Athlete of the year in 2011, so has only just started playing in the tour full-time.

The Indoor Courts at Boar's Head
Tennis Centre

It was not the best decision of Greg to play the match as he could not play to optimum capacity and was not able to serve at full pace due to his sore elbow, nor play his normal back court shots. He dropped serve twice in the first set to Lajola, losing the set 2-6. In the second Greg struggled to hold serve, saving break-points to get to 1-1 before he retired injured, forfeiting the match to Lajola.

Dennis Lajola

Greg is now going to take a week off to rest the injured elbow, and will have x-rays and an MRI to assess if there is any damage to his elbow, which he said is now more sore than previously. More than likely that will be the last match Greg will play on the regular tour this season. He will most probably return home to Sydney and give his elbow time to repair before preparing for the hard yakka he has to do next year in order to retrun his ranking to the levels it was previously, and continue the challenge to get a top 100 ranking.