This is an ITF Grade 1 tournament. No one is calling footfaults here, maybe the ITF allows them, but my opponent was 2 steps into the court today before she even hit the ball! Nonetheless I beat her, Renate Werner from Germany, 60 60. I play a very good player tomorrow, Gabriele Chop. The clay here is red and pretty slow and the balls are heavy duty Dunlop Fort Tournament balls, which the Dutch players thought were very light. I didn’t notice any matching outfits in doubles. The seeding seems to have been done by an older ITF list since it’s not by world ranking order, but I think the rankings were published after the draws were made. It’s sort of confusing, but in Europe the ITF rankings often do a good job of sorting out players since everyone plays a lot of ITF tournaments.
This event has men and women 40-80 in the men and 40-75 in the women, singles and doubles and mixed, though they are going to probably combine some age divisions in the doubles. Bridget Harrer, who is South African but lives part of the time in Austria and Tampa and speaks German…found a doubles partner for me, Gundella Wieland, who is now the 5th seed in the singles, since Julia Smutny, the #2 seed, pulled out yesterday, and Gundula took her place in the draw, being the highest ranked unseeded player, and actually, after the current rankings came out, the 2nd highest ranked player in the draw overall. The 4th seed lost first round to Sabine Schmitz . Bridget and her doubles partner from Tampa, Debbie Hobbs lost but are playing the consolation, Debbie tomorrow and Bridget on Friday, plus doubles.
It rained yesterday morning and Monday afternoon, but fortunately we hit before leaving Austria (Debbie and I visited Bridget in Austria before driving to Rottach), and were able to hit yesterday and today at another club. The weather today was beautiful, sunny, warm at midday but cool in the mornings and evenings. This location is on the Tegernsee; See means lake in German. We are staying just next to the courts in a nice hotel, Parkresidenz which is very convenient, no need to use the car much.
Tomorrow we are practicing early, at 8am before matches start at 9. I play at noon, and not sure about doubles, the draws aren’t posted yet.
Here’s a link to the website. The tournament draws are linked on the right, the 2nd tournament, the one that started on the 1st and ends on the 9th of August.
Photos will be posted soon, probably tomorrow.