Yes, it was warm again today, 90. (Here’s the weather forecast.) I tried was warming up at the Werzer Cups but the officials there aren’t very player friendly, they chased me off well before 8:30 and there were no matches till 9, so I went over to the Leonstein Courts and got in some serves and enough warm up. I hit three serves in a row to the ad side on one end and all hit the net. They felt ok, and I looked more carefully at the net and noticed they’d put the net sticks in about 6 inches from the singles sideline on my court and on the one next to me. I moved them…the ladies next to me had been hitting there for an hour and never noticed and they were good players, Sylvia Bauwens and Michelle Bichon.

I was scheduled for Court 8, match #2, at 10:30. That match ran late, so I watched Aussie Glenn Busby play. He had the other guy so frustrated he was throwing his racquet (without repercussion from the Austrian organizers), and of course he won. I played Dagmar Anwar from Germany today, a very nice lady and played well, winning 60 60, though one game lasted about 10 minutes late in the second set. It was warm and I was glad to win pretty efficiently as tomorrow will be much tougher.

i then watched Clem Hopp from Florida play the men’s 85 final against Sala from Italy, a nice player and very strong for 87…Clem said that Sala was serving and volleying to start the match and was leading 61 at one point,though he recovered to win the set before dropping the second 86 in the tiebreak. They split sets and Hopp won the ensuing match tiebreak 10-2. The match lasted nearly 3 hours (though it was played at a leisurely pace…no one was measuring the time between points, even though their was a chair).  and Hopp had to overcome a sore back and hips to win. Even though there was a chair umpire, he never called a footfault on Sala, even though Sala was footfaulting measurably on every serve.

Gundi Weiland and I won our doubles match today but play a much tougher team tomorrow after our singles final. The player dinner is tomorrow at my hotel, so it will be a long day. I play singles at 10:30 and doubles at 3 (scheduled, amazingly, on center court).

The schedule has been weird, the tournament wants to keep players in the hotels so instead of playing matches on consecutive days, gives many days off. That may be one reason why draws seem to be smaller this year. 

Below are photos of Hopp and Sala, of our doubles opponents from today with Gundi (to the left of Carolyn) and of early evening play in Poertschach.