Dear Mrs. Oudin,

Congratulations on Melanie’s fabulous success so far in the U.S. Open! I’m typing this an hour before her next appearance, and I wish her and your family well. This must so exciting for all of you!

Although none of the Watson children have picked up a tennis racquet in at least nine years, I, along with hundreds of soccer moms in the USYS Region III (which encompasses your hometown of Marietta, GA) can relate to your hotel woes.

Seriously. It is so difficult to know for how long to reserve hotels at sudden-death tournaments, and how to buy return airline tickets for such trips. Last December we had a 3:00 p.m. semifinal game, for example, with a 6:00 p.m. hotel cancellation deadline. Our suitcases were all packed and inside our cars–we’d checked-out by noon, of course–but we were poised to return under new reservations once/if we won the game. (Luckily for us, the rates were the same for all of those nights.)

Our game started late (due to overtimes and injuries in preceding games) and it got pretty tense around 5:35 or so – all 14 of us moms were locking the hotel number into our cellphones and getting ready to call and cancel if needed once/if the final shootout didn’t go our way. Needless to say, it was hard to enjoy the game itself under such pressure.

I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except to say that I feel your pain. We try to minimize distractions and aggravations for our kids when they are competing, especially at high levels, but sometimes you can’t do much about it.

On the bright side, I guess, it’s a terrific problem to have when your advancement exceeds your hotel reservations!!