Hey Yall, one day after my one month anniversary of marriage to Eduardo Arruda was the start of 2006 World Grand Prix in Bydogszcz, Poland! On August 16, 2006 I played in my first match with the Team USA this season. With having joined the National Team so close to this tournament, there wasn’t time to change all of my documents or the GP roster to Scott-Arruda. We finished third. We lost our first match against Dominican Republic in five sets. We definitely had many opportunities to win the match before the fifth set but were not able to pull it off. With Dominican Republic’s improvement it will definitely make for an even more challenging NORCECA tournament. We then played against Poland, winning in four sets with a crowd attendance of almost 9,000 screaming fans, horns blowing and music playing. Then on Friday we had a disappointing defeat against Italy in four sets. Italy hadn’t lost a set until then. The disappointing factor is that we had moments of great play in the second set leading that game and even dominated in the third set win. But Italy’s resilient play with few error and tough serving eventually won the match. I came off the bench in each of the matches.

Our stay in Poland was pleasant for the most part. Some of my teammates walk downtown. The food was good. Of course there were French fries, pasta different meats prepared in a variety of ways. The only one problem were the bugs and spiders! Well, we survived those and now we are off to Macau to face off with China, Brazil and Dominican Republic. Ogonna Nnamni returned to the States due to injuries. Jane Collymore will meet us in Macau.

Until the next entry,

GO USA!

Danielle