It was another beautiful day in Helsinki, weather in the mid-70s, slight breeze and sunny. There are towering trees surrounding the six courts at the main venue, making it and appealing venue.
The scheduling is not unusual for a European tournament but could use some tweaking. I played second match after 11:30, but the 11:30 match was a default, and the second match was quick, so we started around 11:40. I played the top Swede, Vladimira Andersson, who is new to the division (still 64) and an excellent mover, with a decent all round game and nice dropshot off her backhand. She also won the European Championships last month. I hadn’t played her before but spoke to several people who had. It took me a while to figure out the best strategy, though I won 60 61, it took 1:40, including warm up. Interestingly, she returned my serves during warm up and the roving umpire then called time before she’d warmed up her serve and complained, to no avail. There were plenty of roving umpires to call to have marks checked which came in handy!
Meanwhile, on court five, where Rosemary Everett was to play first match after 11:30 (match #4), the 9am match finished at 11:30, the second match went three sets and finished after I did…but the organizers moved matches around and put her on as the third match. (While on my court, court #4, match #5 was already in progress). She beat Michelina Valente 26 62 60 and so we play each other in the final tomorrow sometime (as of 8:30pm the match times haven’t been posted). Rosemary finished around 3:30 or 4pm so we went to the other venue for doubles immediately and won our match comfortably against a Finnish pairing.
Rosemary then had mixed, but had a break first to eat. I went back to the hotel.
Leanne and Wayne Swaysland mostly recovered from their virus, but the other injured Aussies are still recovering. Simon Arms is cruising in men’s 60s, Damien Pound lost in men’s 55 (but won a 2-set 4.5 hour quarterfinal match yesterday…no wonder he needs to fuel up with 5 rounds at breakfast!). And the Aussies are doing well as always in the doubles. Monica from Poland/Australia is in the 50 finals. Luisa Gouveia, my warm up practice, split sets today and retired (some arm cramping), but was up for doubles and mixed anyway.
Tomorrow we play our singles and doubles finals I think, my last matches on this month’s European tour. Then a few days of sightseeing and back to the USA.