I won a three hour battle today somehow, against Sylvia Reigl from Austria. Though the courts were dry outside, we were sent to Bad Kleinkircheim about 15 minutes from Feld am See, and about 1000 feet higher, to play indoors. We did play on clay. (The other indoor venue was carpet.) Sylvia played great, I felt like a puppet, running all over the court and always nicely putting the ball back on her racquet. I won 57 62 63, and was down 2/0 in the third with the new balls, then she finally made a few errors…she hit a lot of lines and nice angled winners today. She was the better player for most of the match. I never did get my timing, I just fought hard. Up in Bad Kleinkircheim the wind was roaring outside as we played and the mountains, which were devoid of snow a couple of days ago were frosted white today. I was supposed to play doubles afterwards, which would have been around 5:30 or so but the tournament committee decided to let us play tomorrow instead since it was so late and our match so long.
Below are photos in Feld am See and Bad Kleinkircheim…you can see the snow on the mountains.
Tomorrow I am scheduled to play at 9am outdoors unless i suppose it rains. It is supposed to be 46 degrees with 10 mph winds then, cozy. We have doubles later, the semis and the winner of our doubles plays the final later tomorrow.
Addendum: A few photos Toni Novack took on the road to her indoor venue:
