Draws are here.

I arrived yesterday in Houston, TX for the 2024 USTA Level 1/ITF MT1000 Clay Courts for the women’s 35/45/55/65/75/85 divisions. I met up with my doubles partner, Susan Wright and her husband Tim at Tennis Express where I shoe shopped and we chatted. I then went to my airbnb not far from the Houston Racquet Club where the tournament is taking place, went grocery shopping (I am staying near the trifecta of Kroger, Whole Foods and Trader Joes!).

I had an early night and in the morning had breakfast and did various band exercises before trying to head out to Tennis Express to return some shoes…or so I thought. I actually put the shoes and my racquets into the car before noticing the lug nuts on the floor next to my car…and then the fact that the car no longer had any tires. In a parking garage accessed only by a key fob or someone buzzing someone in, all my tires had been taken off and stolen! In case you were wondering this is a Ford Escape…someone escaped with its shoes! Hopefully on Monday the cameras will show images or videos of the thieves.

I spent a fairly useless 90 minutes talking to Alamo call center employees in lands far away before calling Susan to ask her to pick me up (I am staying not far from her or the Club). She did and we had our singles practice and doubles practice (with Laurie Capra and Terri Thyssen, last year’s 55s doubles champions).

Susan had her lunch then drove me to the airport (IAH) to get a new rental car (took a couple of hours round trip too) which was the only way I was going to get one…Alamo/National was not going to drive one out to me till next week when they come to pick up the tireless car. They have no incentive to pick it up before next week, as they will be reimbursed for loss of income on the car I think.

The Houston traffic to and from the airport, even on a weekend was awful, but once at the airport it was easy to get a different vehicle. I chose a very nondescript sedan and hopefully it will have tires in the morning. The rental car manager told me to park as close as possible to the car next to me and turn the wheel all the way to the right or left, to make it more difficult to steel tires. So I parked it right next to the tireless Escape…no one is driving that car anytime soon….and there’s also a car parked next to it on the other side.

And that’s day one in Houston…at least the weather was terrific today!