Draws for the ITF Masters Individual World Championships, Turkey (65-90 Divisions)
Livestreaming link can be found HERE (four courts).
Today was a doubles day in Turkey for most players, and I was no exception. Anne Frautschi and I played Carolyn Lane, our teammate, and Heike Deda Kolata in the doubles semis on Center Court! Our match lasted so long there were spectators at the end, and the match was tense throughout (just due to occasion and score, no other reasons). We had a chair umpire since Center is one of the streaming courts. In ITF events, the chair umpires make all the line calls from the chair in addition to lets, not ups and score keeping. (That’s how chair umpires are trained for WTA/ATP/Grand Slams, more than via the linesperson route.)
The format of all doubles here is two regular tiebreak sets with advantage scoring (not “no-ad”) and a match tiebreak in lieu of a third set.
Today was very windy and got windier as the day progressed, cumulating in some showers. However, the wind was a pretty consistent angled cross wind and there were lots of flags flying on Center, so we could see which way the wind was blowing at any time…very helpful.
Anne and I lost the first set 64 (set point was an absolutely dead net cord…even Alcaraz could not have reached it standing 2 feet away, it did not bounce). We changed serving ends for the second set as did our opponents and made some tactical adjustments to win it 62. On to the aforementioned match tiebreak, of which I have not played many. We went up 9-6, then it was 9-8, a ball was hit that may have been out by our opponents but we played on, 9-9, then finally won 11-9. Whew! Excellent match and a suspenseful one.
In contrast to our match, our opponents for the final (German teammates of mine), won 61 61, so we play Sabine Schmitz (GER) and Karien Theeuwes (NED). We play the final I think on Friday.
In other action today, Susan Wright beat Vladimira Andersson (SWE) 62 76 (7), a match played a day early since Andersson had a flight out tomorrow. As a consequence, they played on court D8. Susan said she was up 62 2/0, and 5/4 40-15, then down 6-4 in the tiebreak before rallying to win the set. It was so windy out there. I play the other semifinal tomorrow against France’s Betty Michel.
Wright/Paul French held off two set points in the first set against Chuck Kuhle/Anne Frautschi to advance to the semis tomorrow.
Betsy Kuhle is in the 70 doubles final with Una Davis against Sally Rensburg/Kerry Ballard (victors over Tina Karwasky/Jan Cochran), which will be a good one. Davis plays the semis against Pauline Fisher tomorrow while Rensburg plays Karwasky. Kuhle is also in the mixed semis with Tom Smith, USA and they play tomorrow.
Dean Corley/Jody Rush and Fred Drilling/Jimmy Parker both advanced to the 80 doubles final.
Carolann Castell added an 80 doubles final to her mixed final schedule today.
Carol Wood/Dorothy Wasser reached the 85 doubles final today.
Chuck Nelson, M90, advanced to the final in a nail biter over Werner Marx 62 67 11-9! He plays Althaus who is an amazing mover for hit age (or for an 80 year old).
Some finals start tomorrow, some on Friday and the rest on Saturday.