After ten days in the sunshine, I am back from my holiday in Barbados. I’m feeling the post-holiday blues, but am looking forward to getting back into the tennis loop and blogging too with the Masters 1000 event in Monte-Carlo already underway.  A quick word about Charleston, which I was able to follow a little last week.  I thought it was a fantastic tournament and Andrea Petkovic‘s win was another feel-good storyline in 2014 and personally, my favourite of the year so far.  There were some brilliant matches, the stand-out was probably the surprise semi-final between Belinda Bencic and Jana Cepelova.  I happened to watch some of this match because it was being shown at a restaurant I was dining at.  Parts of the third set I saw were tremendous although apparently it was even more epic with sound.

There have been some really notable storylines in the last week.  Alize Cornet and Caroline Garcia delivered a blaze of French glory with victories in Katowice and Bogota respectively.  Cornet beat Agnieszka Radwanska and then survived a three hour plus thriller with Camilla Giorgi in the final.  The Frenchwoman is having a tremendously consistent year so far and it’s a fact that her best results have come on the clay.  I think she could make some really deep runs over the next couple of months.  Garcia started the season with four straight losses, but since then, has posted a 11-4 W-L record with a semi-final appearance in Acapulco and a first WTA title in Bogota where she defeated Jelena Jankovic in a straight sets final.

Bear with me as I attempt to get back into the swing of normal life, but normal blogging service will resume very soon!