Redshirt-freshman Milagros Cubelli returns for another year of the women’s tennis blog. Nothing is off limits to ‘The Purple Argentine’ as she delves into all things tennis related. In the first edition of the 2013 blog, she introduces the newcomers before the 2-0 Pilots take on the Oregon Ducks.
Be sure to bookmark www.portlandpilots.com/CubelliBlog to keep up with all her latest posts!
2013: New Year. New ACL. New Team. New Season.
I am honored to be responsible of the women’s tennis blog, once again. This year I have a good feeling. Could it be that is our seniors’, Sabine Fuchs and Valeska Hoath, last season? Yes, it could be. That is exciting and special. But it could also be that we have five new players. Our coaches made the best effort to find the weirdest tennis players of the world. And when I say ‘world’, I mean it. The tennis team will always be the most ‘internationalized’ sports team in the US. (Dear Americans: the cause is up to you). Anyways, the weirdness, the talent and above all, the hard work of these new freshmen raise my hopes for this new season. So far, we have had a great start. We were able to bring the W home by beating Eastern Washington 6-1 at Eugene. Plus, we killed some Vandals from Idaho the next day in our first home match.
Before I keep going, let me introduce you to our new teammates:
Saroop Dhat: Better known as “The Silent Assassin”, this Canadian girl knows how to dissect people on the court. Many people say tennis is a lot like chess but every time I watch Saroop play, I’m pretty sure she performs surgery. She opens the court with amazing angles that sentence her opponents to death. We call her
Silent Assassin because it actually took us a few months to get an entire conversation out of Saroop’s mouth. We tried really hard to make her talk but now we regret it because the only thing that comes out of her mouth is: sassiness and more sassiness.
Tori “Tornado” Trash…I’m sorry, Troesh: What can I say of Tori? I had the chance to play with her as my doubles partner. It’s a pleasure to play with her because she can put up with my energetic high fives and punches when we play, and she doesn’t get
that embarrassed when I yell in Spanish at my opponents’ face. Tori might be one of the weirdest players on our team. I think she loves food a lot because every time she gets frustrated on the court she shouts things like: “Fudge Muffin!!” I’ve never seen that before in my life. I don’t know… I guess in Argentina we are different.
Maja Mladenovic: Another international player!! Maja is from Serbia. When I first heard she was coming I was super excited because there was going to be another international player on the team and that means…I was going to have a friend with an accent and we where going to be able to mispronounce/invent words and roll our ‘R’s together. But then Maja came, and she ruined all my expectations. Her English is amazing; in a few more months she will sound American. And that leaves me, with my South American accent, struggling on the other side.
Marina Rheimers and her phone: It’s impossible for me to introduce Marina without talking about her phone. It’s like the prolongation of her hand. When we first met her, we noticed that she couldn’t stop taking pictures of herself. We were on our first road trip during the fall and, while we were having dinner, I saw her taking her millionth picture of her face. I couldn’t stop myself and I asked: Are you okay? Do you need any kind of help? She showed me what ‘Snapchat’ was before it was even created. Marina was called to play for the US Snapchat National Team but instead, she chose to stay and play for the tennis team!! It’s such an honor to have her!
Emily “OMG” Gould: This California girl was born to say “OMG”. It doesn’t matter the context, EG will always find the way to make the reference. Her soft voice and her sweet attitude make everyone think she is an angel. Appearances deceive, people. This freckled being is extremely sassy.
Coming back to our season, we are traveling to Eugene to play against Oregon. As my tan shows, I went back home to Argentina during the break and I invited my fellow Pilot, Katy Krauel. I am able to say that Katy and I had some interesting experiences down there, which I will pleasurably talk more about on my next entry. But I want to show you guys our encounter with the Ducks…
I swear that today we are looking for some revenge after that attack on the park.
Long live Wally,
The purple Argentine.
