Yesterday, Friday, was a quiet day. I did play tennis finally in the late afternoon with the Club Vice President. We drove to the Country Club about 10 minutes away, a lovely drive past the golf course. Everything is really green since Germany and Europe have been receiving copious amounts of rain this spring. The Country Club has five courts, three of which the Rot-Weiss Club has rented out for the season; a pool and a huge all weather soccer field. There are vineyards on the hills behind the courts and the border to France is only about 10 miles away. We had a pretty good hit. The courts were fast for clay and very high bouncing and dry, much different from Turkey or from hard courts.

I also hit the “Penny Market” which is a discount store, similar to Aldis, and prices on nuts, chocolate drinks and strawberries were really good. The Rafa/Nole match was on at 1pm here and I must say I watched a lot of it and listened to the commentary online with Radio Roland Garros. It was hard to leave even if Fed wasn’t playing!

Today I had a good match with “Tillmann” who I met two years ago here. We played out at the Country Club, and were the only ones there on a beautiful sunny and warm Saturday. The courts felt even faster since he hit a lot of heavy topspin forehands, but I’m getting a feel for the courts. Afterwards I took the bus back to Baden Baden and after dropping by the hotel, got my bike and headed off the the tennis club. There’s a nice park behind the courts and I had a good work out. Then I watched a little of the club match going on. There’s about a 6 or 7 week season and about 6 or so levels of play in various divisions such as open, over 30, over 40, etc and also under 14 and under 16. The format is 6 singles followed by 3 doubles matches and most of the singles players also play doubles. It lasts most of the afternoon and evening since the teams only have three courts.

I then biked into Old Town and walked up to see the church and wandered around. Tomorrow I’m hoping to figure out how to get to the old castle in the morning and am hitting balls again in the afternoon.

The tournament starts Monday but I don’t play till Wednesday…can’t wait to play.