Draws are here.

I am in Lugano for the ITF Masters 700 here. According to the website there are 58 events and 254 players (that total might go up a bit as the doubles deadline is tomorrow.)

I played a third member of the Italian Kitty Godfree Cup team which will play in Mallorca, Elisa Marcon, at 6pm tonight. I played two of the others in Alassio in April and play their top player, Carola Kluzer, tomorrow. I beat Marcon 61 60, but had a slow start as she has an unusual game, full swinging drop shots which were hard to read off her forehands and she used her drop shot a lot! The drop shot is quite effective on these courts. We used Head Tour balls (they are branded as Penn Tour in the USA but I think they are more like Penn Tour Extra Duty than Regular Duty) and the new ones were really lively at the beginning and flew around the court till ground down by the clay and hitting.

Below, Eliza and me…we looked like we were ready for inspection on the left (too serious), and so had to liven & lighten up the photo (right).

I warmed up at 7:30-8:30 with Peter and Rosemary, then basically chilled till I played at 6pm. I’m glad I did because I play at high noon tomorrow (initially I was told I would not play tomorrow). The weather today was pretty warm but pleasant at 6pm when I played, as clouds came over in the evening.