Two Tennis Players In Quarantine • Day 8 • Ellen Perez Checks In From Perth

As we enter the second week of hotel quarantine, we aren’t quite sure what to expect. Everyone we have spoken to says the first week is the hardest but then you get into a routine and the second week gets easier. I’m not sure that will apply to us.

Dasha and I went pretty hard in the first week with fun activities and cool ideas but I’m sure all that will start to get boring and not look as appealing. One thing I also am wary of is that the first week It wasn’t too bad to have a week off from tennis as it was a long tour overseas and a lot of matches and travelling. As tennis players we usually don’t have more than a week off unless injured. So, as we enter this second week, I think we might miss the idea of being outside training and getting better. But then again as the women’s tennis calendar is pretty bleak and for us in particular our season is over; we aren’t in too much of a rush to get back to training as we have plenty of time before the start of 2021.

So today we have entered day 8 of quarantine. I woke up at my usual time of 10am. I love my sleep ins and any chance I get to have one I will. It’s a rather poor sleep schedule I’m on while in quarantine. Going to bed as late as 2am and waking up 10am. It’s going to be tough to adjust time zones when we fly back to Melbourne and Sydney as they’re 3 hours ahead!

Today we did a fun Tabata footwork and strength session. I’ve been trying to get my creative juices flowing and use exercises we have had in our programs to come up with room workouts. It’s been a welcomed challenge. We also squeezed in a little dancing into this session because Dasha can’t help herself, but it also makes the session more enjoyable.

For lunch we had a Caesar salad and followed that up with a lengthy tv show session. Dasha and I go in waves of energy and excitement. We will both be alone doing our own thing then someone gets bored enough and bursts into the others room and annoys them enough to then spark ourselves into some sort of action. Whether that be drawing, making bracelets, dancing, working out, singing, facetiming someone or a group movie. We don’t really plan our days they just seem to happen and so far it’s been working well.

Tonight, we had a nice peri-peri chicken and BBQ beef ribs for dinner while we watched the women’s doubles finals and later tonight will watch the long-awaited men’s final. I’m a big Rafa fan so I’ll be cheering for him.