Hey Everyone!  Well, as most of you know, Shingle Springs was my last tournament as a touring professional and I'm sure you are wondering what my reasons for stopping were and what my plans for the future are.  But before getting to that I would just like to say thank you to everyone who supported me during the last couple of years as I was playing on the tour.  It was really an amazing experience to have so many people interested in what I was doing and following my progress as I traveled from tournament to tournament.  The emails and letters of encouragement that I received from you really went a long way in helping me to stay positive and focused on what I was doing.  For those of you who also helped to support me financially I just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be out there on tour doing what I love to do and trying to accomplish my dream.  Unfortunately it's come to an end as I've gone through all my savings and sponsorship funds and since I wasn't able to contribute as much as I was hoping to in the way of prize money, I've come to the point in my career where I decided it is time to stop. 

Hey Everyone,
Well, it's been a tough couple of months.  I haven't been getting the results that I was hoping for in these last few tournaments and to be completely honest I'm very disappointed in how I have been playing.  I know for those of you who have been following on the website and through the emails it's hard and not much fun to see all these losses week after week and I just wanted to let everyone know what's going on right now with my game.  I've been playing a certain way now for a long time and it's taken me to where I am now, but I feel that in order to make the jump to the next level I need to change and improve certain aspects of my game.  I've been working on these things with John Rodrigues who has been coaching me for a few months now.  I really feel like this is a transition time for me right now and even though it's very very hard to take all these losses, once I work through these changes and become comfortable playing this way during matches I'll be able to play at a much higher level than before and the results will follow.  So hang in there.  I have two more Futures back in Hawaii which I am very excited to play in, not only to try and finish the year on a high note but also to be able to see my family and spend Thanksgiving with them.

CHRIS

 

This Wednesday I saw Ocean's Thirteen with Scott, Teri, and Daniel so the four of us will be giving our "review" of the movie.  The overall feeling after the movie was that although it was definitely better than Ocean's Twelve it still wasn't up to par with the original Ocean's Eleven.  It seemed as if they focused the majority of the time on the planning and strategizing of the plot and then rushed through the actual heist which gave the movie a slightly slow feel which definitely turned Scott off on the movie as there wasn't enough action for him.  Even though there was an interesting twist in the ending which involves Oprah it was way more predictable than the first one and although it was a decent movie it definitely didn't live up to the expectations of the group.

CHRIS

I'm back in Sacramento!  This week I have the first of two futures here in Sacramento, I actually played my second round of qualifying this morning and have the final round tomorrow so keep checking the website for updates!  This week Scott's been nice enough to have me back at his house again and other than eating all of his snacks, I've been following the French Open on his awesome plasma high definition tv.  And let me tell you, I never really believed all the hype over hi-def but after watching the French and for the first time actually being able to see the ball on the red clay courts which is usually impossible to do during the French, I'm a believer.  Unfortunately that meant that I had an even clearer view of Federer losing this morning to Nadal which means I'll have to wait another whole year to see if he can complete the Grand Slam.

CHRIS 

Although it was a pretty uneventful week since the Carson Challenger didn't go as well as I was hoping, I did help my girlfriend Jamie pick up a Penske truck for her move from LA to Phoenix and as it was only the two of us. I got the pleasure of driving one of those things from the rental place back to her apartment. Let me just say I have a lot more respect for people who drive those big trucks now. It's a lot harder than it looks. My next tournament is the Yuba City Challenger, which is near Sacramento and starts on Saturday. Have a great Memorial Day!

CHRIS

I'm finally back in a tournament and feeling good right now.  My left wrist is doing better and I'm looking forward to playing here in Vero Beach and see how it goes.  I spent last week in Palm Springs working out with my old UCLA teammate Alberto Francis and we both trained with coach Jose Higueras at his Smoke Tree Ranch facility.  Alberto is coached by Jose and stays at the ranch when he is not on tour so I stayed in his room for the week.  Jose is an awesome coach and the whole training setup is great.  I stayed in a ranch style building that has a common living room with 5 bedrooms off the main room for the players who are training at the ranch.  The building is right next to the tennis courts which works out well.  There are 7 hard courts and two clay courts and we trained exclusively on the clay to prepare for these next three tournaments.  For meals, you put in your order at the beginning of the week.  They have a huge kitchen where the food is prepared and an adjoining dining room where you eat.  There is a weight room, a stringing room, which I had to use much too often, and an office for the coaches and players to meet.  All in all it was a great week and I am much better prepared to get back into tournament action, starting tomorrow with my first round doubles match.  It's great to finally be able to compete again!

CHRIS          

Hello to everyone and here's my updated news.  After spending a few weeks doing rehab and lots of off-court training while in Hawaii, I finally got the green light from the doctors to do some light hitting!  I spent two more weeks in Honolulu strengthening my wrist and doing some very. very light hitting with my younger brother, Carter, before heading back to the Mainland.  The hardest part during all of this has been to hold back and not do too much and risk re-injuring my wrist since that would be the worst case scenario and would set me back another 3 to 4 weeks.  Unfortunately my wrist is not at 100% yet so I will have to skip the Challenger in Valencia (CA) this weekend, which was very disappointing but I'm hoping that I will be able to start in Little Rock, Arkansas the following week if everything goes well.  After that, I'm off to Florida for two Futures then a Challenger in New York!  All three of those tournaments are on clay.  It's been painful sitting on the sidelines watching the tournament results from home so I couldn't be more anxious to get back out there and start competing again as soon as physically possible!

That's it for now.  I need to go to finish working on my taxes, which at this point has me seeing double!  Finally, I wish everyone a blessed Easter Sunday with your family and look forward to being back out on tour real soon!

CHRIS