Rain, cold and night time play in Ashburton on Friday

The weather was…no way to sugarcoat it…dismal today. Rainy and cold till about 4pm when the courts finally began to dry, and they dried fast, play began about 5pm in Ashburton today. It was still very cold and damp though. I brought warm clothes but Kathy Vick and Susan Wright from the 50s team are wearing about half of them!

Yesterday the weather was nice, and since we did not have to play, we went to Timaru where the women’s 35s, 40s and men’s 40s are playing and watched the 35s play the last round robin match. Timaru is pretty, on the water and much larger than Ashburton, about 30,000 people. We also had the player dinner followed by dancing.

Our team had the day off, but in between watching for signs of clearing, Kathy I spent about two hours at the travel agency trying to change plane reservations. This was NOT easy because many legs of the tickets were booked as separate reservations from the overseas part…so we could change one part but not the other, without a big fee. We finally got things somewhat sorted out and the rain let up about 3:30pm and stopped around 4pm. I also am back in my room just in time to pack up for the rest of my trip!

The women’s 50s won both singles. Diane Fishburne was down a set and 5-4, 15-0 and rallied to win the set and the match tiebreak at about 9pm (past her usual bedtime too). Ross Persons had lost the first match for the 55 men (in a 10 point tiebreaker). In our division, since the final rounds are a three team round robin without a true final, all three round robin matches will be played using a match tiebreak format.

In Timaru, the women’s and men’s 40s teams are in the final. The 35s were expecting a tough match against Spain in the semis. (Update, they lost 2/0 to Spain, play now for third.)

The news from Christchurch continues to be dismal. I saw an arial view of the tennis center on the news today, it was mostly under water and the courts were cracked. They had just finished resurfacing the courts five days prior to the start of the event…Susan and I were two of the first people to hit on it last week. I saw a photo of a destroyed building that housed the gym I went to every day when I was here three years ago. The damage is incredible in the center city. Yet here, only an hour south, there was really no damage.