Fresh off their first doubles title in San Jose where they knocked off the top-seeded Bryan Brothers, Scott Lipsky and David Martin are in Las Vegas preparing for their first Tennis Channel Open. They will be blogging about their Vegas experience throughout the tournament.

David: I'm originally from Tulsa, OK, but having attended Stanford, this isn't my first trip to Vegas, but it will be our first time playing this tournament. There is certainly a buzz here with all the glitz of the famous Las Vegas Strip.

Scott: You're just excited to see Thunder from Down Under.

David: That's not true, but I do want to see at least one Cirque du Soleil show - doesn't even matter which one.

Also, they have to have some good restaurants here right? I ate at Pink Taco at the Hard Rock last night. I had a burrito that was pretty good. Scott likes to eat healthy, but for me, I usually live on pizza, burgers...what else?

Scott: You'll eat anything.

David: I want to eat sushi - do they have any good sushi restaurants in town?

Scott: No David, there don't have sushi here. I heard there's a good Jack in the Box here. But I'm certainly going to avoid the Extended Stay America.

It's could be difficult here for some players to get their practice in since between gambling, eating, the shows, there's quite a bit of distraction from the goal at hand. If you have some bad luck on the tables, that stress could carry over onto the courts.

David: How did you do playing blackjack last night?

Scott: I actually won a bit. I was playing with Eric Butorac though, and he must've lost about $300.

David: But we're here to try to build on our recent breakthrough win in San Jose. The bar has been set a bit higher now that we've beaten the Bryan bros and won a tournament, but as long as we don't get complacent, I like the direction we're heading.

Scott: We do now travel with 10-20 people in our posse – some of whom we don't even know. Only kidding, we just have my coach Scott McCain and David's coach Steve DeVries. I think we may be one of the only doubles team to use two different coaches.

David: But they're both friends, so it's not the least bit awkward and might even work to our advantage.

It's quite windy out here, and Scott won't even practice if the conditions aren't perfect, and we face a tough team from Brazil in Marcelo Melo and Andre Sa in the first round. We've practiced against them, but never faced them in a tournament. I'm comfortable with these conditions having grown up playing in Tulsa, so I'm going to try to coax Scott out onto the court to get some practice in.

Talk to you soon,

-David and Scott