The off season.

Ahhh, the long awaited "off season"!!!!

I think it's only called that way to make everyone feel like they are resting, but the truth is, it's the hardest practice time for a pro-player!

Everyone has a different time frame for their "preparation." This is going to be my final season playing tennis professionally so I thought that 5 weeks will do just fine for me. And after the final flight of the year (which felt like never ending) I landed on Florida's soil!

Everything was just fine until I got through the security....then I started shaking. My whole body was shivering and my energy level dropped so much that I was barely pushing my luggage cart.

I don't know how I got to the car rental company....I think I just had enough in me to rent a car and put my bags in the trunk.

For the next four hours I was laying on a declined car seat, shaking all the way to my bones, thinking that I am not able to drive myself home.

Thank God my boyfriend was arriving the same evening and I decided to wait for him and let him drive home.

And that's how my OFF SEASON started! Laying sick in bed for almost two weeks!

At times I would move from my bed to the living room's couch and look outside the window where the sun was shining and luring me to come outside.....The long awaited warm weather, my plans to go to the beach during a week off....I hope the illnesses I had this past year, from vertigo to bronchitis and a horrible flu at the end of the year, are all gone, and next year I will be healthy.

That is one of my wishes for 2010!

Finally after about two weeks of flu, still couching a bit but feeling better, I have decided to start practicing again. I called my fitness coach Jo Jo (or "torturer" my nickname for him) and my tennis coach Nick who has been helping me this year,to set up the schedule for the next few weeks. I was ready to go!

First couple of tennis practices were very short and lacked energy on my part. Of course, I must have lost five or six pounds being sick! I am already having hard time gaining weight as is, (something a lot of women would kill for) and now I have to work twice as hard to gain my weight back plus some extra pounds of muscles.

So here I am on the New Years Eve, it's 6 pm, but I am ready to go to bed. I joke with my friends that in these three weeks of my "preparation" I have moved the GYM I work out at, from the street it stands on, closer to my house.

I have to get dressed for the New Years party tonight but I have no energy to do so. I thought of the small toothless boy who watched me work out today, together with his little friends , he slowly approached me and said: "I was watching you. And I must say you are doing a great job!" Even he understands how hard I worked! And he is like six!!!!

I better do a great job! This is my last year playing professionally and I want it to be a great one! I am ready! I worked my butt off! I was sore and grumpy for two weeks out of three!

I have to be ready and be back in shape!

So please join me in 2010, my last year on the Tour!

I will try to make it fun and adventurous! Come with me to play and travel around the world!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!