The final of the singles and doubles were held today in Bad Breisig, where this tournament was a Grade 1 ITF tournament for the first time.

I played Lyn Mortimer for the third time this year, all in the final. She’s an Aussie who spends nearly 6 months in Germany, from April till September more or less and we always have tough matches. She attacks, I counter, so it’s a challenge and a big contrast in styles. Today almost every game was close, but I got up 5-2 and it started raining, first lightly then pretty hard. But we played on. I had some set points but Lyn held them off, but I won the set 63. The rain abated at the start of the second set, so we didn’t have to go indoors to play. In the second set she was up most of the set and was up 4-3, but I broke, held and then she served to stay in the match. Like the Jankovic/Azarenka last night in Ohio, there were many more breaks thank holds. I got up 40-0, she got aggressive and hit two winners and on the third match point I came to net and finished the match with a volley winner.

Margreth Beyer and I lost the doubles 64 62 to Barbora Koutna and Olga Markova. It was a decent match, but they hit harder and made better serves and returns, especially Barbora. Today we had no problems with the balls, we were given new balls to start the final.

After dinner I rode my bike along the Rhein for about 45 minutes. There’s a great bike trail that goes for miles and miles.

Tomorrow I will take the train to Tegernsee for the next tournament. I play there on Thursday, so I have a couple of days to get used to the conditions there which are different, as there is some altitude so it’s a bit quicker and the balls will fly some.

Below are photos of Lyn and me and of Margreth, Barbora, Olga and me.