It was a long day today and the weather was crazy…windy, sunny, rainy…all in the same match.

Daniela Esswein, who spends half the year in Florida, was nice enough to warm me up for my match with Lynn Mortimer. Our match was streaky…I got big leads in each set, then Lynn would start to hit gobs of winners….I won 64 67 62. I play Heidi Eisterlehner in the final…she edged Susanne Schweda by about the same score, 36 76 62 and Schweda had 3 set points, one she said at 5/4 and 2 in the tiebreak. Heidi almost double faulted on one according to an onlooker…the wind kept her serve in, and in the third set Heidi dominated. It was the first time Schweda had had a match point against Heidi, whom she’s never beaten.

In the doubles, we played Heidi and Kate, and lost the first set 63, rebounded by doing what the Aussies call “hussling” which means apparently, mixing things up and throwing their opponents off balance. Then on to the match tiebreak. We were up 3/1 then down 7/3 when it began raining rather strongly…we went up 9/7 and at 9/8 my volley hit the net and dropped over. So we are European Doubles Champions by the narrowest of margins.

Except for the women’s 55, all the finals were played today. I play Heidi at 10:30 tomorrow and then go to London in the evening.

The women’s 50s was won by Barbora Koutna in a long match, 76 in the third…her opponent just pushed the ball, but ran well and got every ball back. An Italian player who upset Lucie Zelinka first round rolled through the rest of the draw in the women’s 40s; Klartje Van Baarle cruised to a win in the 45s over her unseeded opponent; in the men’s divisions, a Canadian player won the 40s; It was an all Aussie final in the 55s, with Busby overwhelming Andrew Rae, who was the defending champion in the 55s (and Busby was the defending champion in the 50s and immensely popular here); the men’s 50 winner here this year won the final 60 60; last year he lost in 3 sets to Busby in the final.

Kerry Douglas and Andrew Rae won the mixed, as an unseeded team.