The only negative to such sunny days is that it’s hard to see in the afternoon! However, I played singles in the morning and got on a bit late but not much. I played last year’s champion Dina McBride. I tried to talk her into giving me a game for every year she is younger than me, but she didn’t fall for that idea! She won her first round match 60 60 against a very good player, this year’s 45 Grass finalist, so I was expecting to be done before noon. My goal was to get four balls back per point. I didn’t always achieve that but I did get a few back and won four games. In fact, there was only one break in the first set. Dina made some good adjustments in the second set and won the last 6 games of the match. Since we didn’t finish till after 1pm it was a moral victory for me. For Dina it was an actual victory and she plays Fanny Gamble the semis. Fanny upset the #4 seed, Mercedes Michel, 26 76 62. I warmed up with Fanny, so she obviously warmed me up better than I warmed her up. Jennifer Dawson won 61 61 in under an hour. Amy Frazier won 1/0 retired, injury. The first game lasted 16 points and the few points I saw were excellent, Hiromi is very fast. However, Hiromi got injured one point into the second game and ended up at the hospital, with an apparent back injury. I was playing at the time so didn’t see what happened.
In women’s doubles, the seeded teams all reached the semis, and none dropped a set. Michel/Phillips won 64 64; the top 3 seeds only dropped 3 games between them! Jennifer Dawson/Jenny Rens destroyed the team we lost to yesterday, losing only one game!
In men’s singles, most of the seeds won; NorCal’s Shibu Lai is the only unseeded player left; he beat #5 seeded Kerry Safdie when Safdie had to retire at 5-5 in the third (ill); Jesse Ponwith upset #5 seeded Elson De Cantuaria when he had to retire (injury) at 31 in the third.
Marcio Carlsson from Brazil, the 4th seed, has yet to drop a game in singles. He’s shown below (tall player on the left) with the other four Brazilian players here.
In mixed, all the seeds advanced to the quarters.
in men’s doubles, there was a mild upset when #5 seeded Quest/Jacobs beat Hoffmann/Hernandez, the 4th seeds. The top three seeds reached the semis.
I play tomorrow at 8am, singles and doubles at noon…
Draws: http://tennislink.usta.com/tournaments/TournamentHome/Tournament.aspx?T=153472#&&s=7Draws9
Below: some of the 40 men’s singles players including Jeff Greenwald and Joss Oswald.