Today I was second match on after 11. Lieslot Prechtel and I had a disjointed warm up due to a communication mix-up between the referee (who allowed a warm up on a middle court) and another tournament worker who kicked us off. However we got to hit plenty of groundstrokes, overheads and volleys and a court opened up later for me to hit serves.

I was set to play Dorthea Foks from Germany who upset #2 seeded Maggie Beyer, my doubles partner here, yesterday. All week she had her hamstring, calf and apparently Achilles taped with kinesio tape (hard to see an Achilles taping under socks). Maggie and Dorthea had a pretty vigorous match yesterday, and Dorthea’s heel was apparently pretty stiff this morning and I knew it was sore, I saw her icing it yesterday and massaging it today and saw the tape. I’ve had that injury before, Achilles tendonitis, and it doesn’t feel good, especially taking off for the ball and stopping for drop shots…so I did what any considerate person would do and hit lots of dropshots and angles, to put her out of her misery as quickly as possible. It worked well for 4 games, then her body started warming up and we had a long game (12 minutes according to the chair umpire). She ran quite a lot during that game and ran pretty well…and retired after I won the long game, so I won 5-0 retired. It was rather anticlimactic as I had trained very well here and was looking forward to a good match.

I watched several matches today afterwards…Lieslot lost to Klartje Van Baarle in straight sets…Klartje is just amazing on clay, hitting a very very heavy ball…hard to believe she’s in the 50s. I also saw Jurate Hardy who played a thoughtful, smart match to beat the dangerous Christina Wolf in straight sets in the 45s semis. I also watched Jacques Hervet from France (but he plays on a German team at Baden Baden)…what great feel he has. I even took a photo which is amazing of him…only if you consider that he’s right handed and had perfect left handed technique in the photo. I’ll try and add it to this post when I get somewhere with an adequate internet connection…the one here is maddeningly slow. Hervet is into the men’s 50 final against Konstantinas from Greece, the #1 player in the world, who won in three sets today. Norbert Henn won the men’s 55 singles. I also watched some doubles: Liselsot and her partner won the mixed over Canadian Marc Pepin and Christiane Deryckere whom I beat yesterday, pretty decisively. In the women’s doubles, Jurate Hardy and Kerstin Block lost in a match tiebreak in doubles and the team we played yesterday, Van Baarle/Heck-Elias upset the #2 seeds 64 64. The doubles final is tomorrow as are finals in the younger age divisions.

After watching and then receiving the prizes for winning (this year for singles, 150 Euros, a hat and a towel, but no medals or wine…fine with me about the wine but I liked the medals), I rode into the old town in Baden Baden and walked all over the town for a couple of hours, then slowly biked back. I really have enjoyed the Baden Baden tournament more each year and feel as if I have friends there. The tournament only goes up to age 55, so I won’t be back next year, which is sad, but I’ll be on to another adventure in Austria instead.

Tomorrow I’m off to Poertschach, Austria for the Werzer Cup. The tennis there will be tougher, there are some good players in the draw and one, an Austrian, isn’t seeded, so I need to be ready to go first round.

Photos to follow and a link to the Austrian tournament will be coming soon to my website and blog.

Soon is here: Link to the draws in Austria: http://www.itftennis.com/seniors/tournaments/tournament/info.aspx?tournamentid=1100030421

For now, click on “draws”. I am seeded #1 out of 9 players.  The player to watch is Friedl from Austria; I think she may take out the #2 seed first round, she’s a tough lefty.