Today was a long one, but a very good one. It was raining early, so no warm up; the gates were locked at 8am and not opened till matches started at 9. I saw a couple of open courts, so walked around till I found someone dressed for tennis…one of our doubles opponents from the day before, and asked her to warm up…she agreed and we had a good hit. I played Julia Smutny, my opponent in Klagenfurt, again and won, this time 61 61. She played better, hit a little deeper.
There was an awards ceremony just before our scheduled doubles match, which was nice..I got quite a large trophy for winning the singles. The men’s are red and silver, the women’s gold and green. Fred Drilling finished second in the 70 singles, losing 61 62 to Peter Pokorny. Heide Orth won the 70 singles and 60 doubles; Petro Kruger won everything in all three tournaments, Klagenfurt, European and Austrian, in 65 singles and in doubles.
The first doubles today was against the #2 seeds, Aussies Wendy and Leanne, who were defending champions. Toni and I played well and won 62 64. It was a fun match. Then we discussed playing the final today of the doubles. It was scheduled for today, but really up to me as under ITF rules I only had to play 2 matches in one day…(really I should have played singles yesterday, to avoid this problem). Our final round opponents received a walkover into the final after winning their QF match with the top seeds. They really wanted to play today and are very nice ladies, so after an hour break we played the final against Ellen from Munich and Julie from Australia. We won 64 61. Toni Novack played really well, especially since she doesn’t get to play much doubles in Saudi Arabia!
We had another trophy presentation, then we all went up to the bar and had a drink (Coke light for me). We had a lot of laughs, it was a fun end to the week.
The tournament dinner was tonight at the Werzer hotel. It was a good buffet, lots of Austrian foods and Gruner Spargel (green asparagus).
Tomorrow Toni and I are going to visit Villach, near by and I go to Munich on Sunday.
Congrarulations on yet another great win and in 2 sets, no less. Wonderful happy faces on all players. Loved the photos. This is my 86th year on the planet, so it was a great birthday gift for me to see you all and recall my time in Portschach. On to Munich and then what? Hope to see you back in the states for the Nationals. All the best and thanks for making my day! rita
your trophies look familiar..mine from last year never made it back to the States