CarolynNichols.com & SeniorTennisBlog.com

Today was the nicest of the week, with no rain, and a warm sunny afternoon.

I played Camille Lafortune in the final and won 60 60. She was very nice and we had some good points. We had an umpire, but he called no lines and didn’t reverse even obvious errors (my opponent played some out first serves). He did however, call the score and make announcements in French and English!

 

Players from the US were few but did well here, winning the men’s 65 (Michael Beautyman) & 75 (Nick Ourusoff) and finishing second in the 55s (Sumner Chase); winning women’s 35 (MJ Pachl), 55 (Carolyn Nichols) and 75 (Burnett Herrick). In doubles US players won the women’s 35 (Nichols/Pachl), 65 (Herrick/Dorothy Wasser) and Michael Beautyman was a 65 doubles finalist. MJ also won the mixed for a sweep of the event. The mixed was close, MJ and her partner dropped the first set, won the second 61 and then won the match tiebreak 10-7.

 

   

 

 

Burnett Herrick played a great match today to beat Roz King 67 64 62. She was way down in the first, 51 or 52, but made some great gets of Roz’s wicked drop shots and hit hard and deep, then frequently came forward to finish the point at net, where she had a big wingspan. Roz just said that Burnett played great. Roz and Judith Smith finished second in the 65 doubles.

 

There was an interesting semifinal men’s 35 match. One guy was very upset when overruled on a baseline call; threw his racquet, asked for the main referee etc; the referee backed his umpire; his opponent remained calm and won and the umpire said if he gave the guy a warning he thought he’d explode. All in a day’s play for the seniors, and hopefully all forgotten by now.

Mark Pepin is one of the more colorful Canadians, very friendly. He brought his leftovers to the club and managed to get the cook at the golf snack bar to heat them up for him!

The prize for winning the doubles was a Mt Tremblant hat; for winning singles it was $100 Canadian dollars for each age division (I think it was all the same).

Off the airport early tomorrow so I need to wrap this up; next stop Baden Baden.

Draws: http://www.itftennis.com/seniors/tournaments/tournament/info.aspx?tournamentid=1100030641

I was one of the lucky ones today, since I got in both my matches. My singles was scheduled for 10, but it started drizzling, then really raining, lightly, but hard enough for the lines to get slippery. We ended up starting just before 11, and finished by 11:30. It started raining hard just as we finished grooming the court. I won 60 60 and so advanced to the final, winning my round robin group. I thought I would play Madeline Berube in the final, since she beat Camille Lafortune 62 62 yesterday and Camille beat the third woman in the group 60 60. However Madeline didn’t make it here on time; she was staying a couple of hours away and it was raining where she was, so she didn’t drive over. She was defaulted and so Camille won the group and we play tomorrow at 1pm.

Play was then delayed till 1pm. We were playing a final but got permission to play it without a chair umpire. MJ Pachl, my doubles partner, had 2 mixed doubles matches scheduled and our opponents had mixed doubles scheduled later also, so everyone wanted to get going. We played in a light drizzle, that became pretty heavy (along with the balls). MJ and I won 62 62 against the #2 seeds, Suzie McCollough and Lorraine Miller. MJ played well and it was fun to play doubles. Lorraine is lefty with some nice touch and Suzie had good positioning and nice volleys too.Below, MJ and me, Mt Tremblant Cup/Regional Closed doubles champions.

 

I left after singles since it was starting to rain hard. I went back for the informal cocktail party they had from 5-7 with cheese and veggies and each player was given a voucher for a drink from the bar.

I had dinner with the tournament director Jacques Brunelle and the director of tennis, Andre Lemaire. They are trying hard to make the tournament a good one. They have a lot of experience running nationals, but not with running a seniors Grade B1. They are listening hard to the players which is great.

I walked into Old Tremblant after dinner. It’s a touristy village. It was much busier tonight. There’s a big triathalon this weekend and I think some of the participants have arrived, either that or they are here for a long weekend.

Here are a few photos of the town.

 

 

Tomorrow should be sunnier and I’m hoping to take the gondola up the mountain and get some nice photos, and perhaps do some biking (after I buy some bug spray…I sprayed everything but my hair and under my shirt; so I have bites in my hair and through my shirt from mosquitos or black flies. There aren’t really all that many bugs though. Just a few, but their bites are annoying!

Bon soir.

The good news: it didn’t rain today! It was really cold though, and cloudy, but not too windy. I played my first round robin singles match and won today 60 60. MJ Pachl from Florida and Canada and I played doubles and we won 60 60. We play the 2nd seeds, a team which also won 60 60 tomorrow so that should be fun. I play another round robin match against someone who lost 60 60 to the woman I beat today.

I warmed up early with MJ and then went over to the courts, thinking I’d watch some of her match and some of Roz King’s (from San Diego) at 10. Roz didn’t start though till later, as  both she and her opponent thought they were playing at 1pm.

I also watched Taras Beyko in the men’s 45 (he won 60 60) who was the 2013 men’s 45 world champion; Denis Dumas, in men’s 50, and he won 61 64, he’s the top seed, and Richard Soucy who was part of the group I had dinner with night before last;he upset the #2 seed on Monday and the #3 seed today (62 63) to get the dubious pleasure of playing Taras (just a tough match is all).

Later on Michael Beautyman dominated his men’s 65 semi as did another American, Sumner Chase (he gets every ball back!) in the men’s 55.

 

After singles we had to wait for a long time, a few hours, while the referee sorted out the doubles and mixed draws and scheduling. We couldn’t leave as we were given no start times; as soon as the draws and seeds were made (with liberal use of seeding exemptions, which is fine) we were called to play our match. It was very cold and there was no nearby clubhouse, only a small shed where the referee was situated. There weren’t many chairs either. The shed is shown behind MJ and me.

 

One of the more interesting matches was that between Burnett Herrick/Dorothy Wasser and Roz King/Judith Smith. Unfortunately, they were drawn to play each other first in a 3 team round robin. The match was close as expected with Burnett and Dorothy winning 26 64 1/0 (10-8). The tournament played a match tiebreak in lieu of a third set.

I went for dinner with MJ and Rudy Pachl and had a nice dinner (thank you Rudy!); right now everything is deserted but there’s a big triathlon on the weekend which will fill the hotels.

I play tomorrow at 10 and we have doubles at 1pm, the doubles final.

Link to draws (click order of play, then draws or “matches” to see results.

This pretty much says it all.

But for further emphasis (and this was before it really came down hard):

So it’s been a pretty relaxing day. I hit the grocery store, a nice IGA, and it’s always interesting to see what different foods are in grocery stores in different parts of the world. (More ham, less chicken, no Tab!).

Hopefully I play tomorrow…maybe twice. There are a dozen courts at this venue, and there weren’t many matches scheduled today, only a dozen, so there should be plenty of courts tomorrow to play two days’ worth of matches…if the weather cooperates.

It’s pretty gloomy out, which is too bad as this is a beautiful part of the world. It’s very green, but then, landing in Montreal,what struck me first was how green it was…there was grass in the area between runways, bright green grass. Coming from California, the dry state, that really stood out.

Here’s a link to the draws (click on “order of play” then draws, or matches; I’m in Group A of the 55s.); the tournament website is here.