Draws/results are here.

I am in Font de sa Cala, Mallorca, Spain in the Northeast part of Mallorca for one of the biggest, if not the biggest Masters tournaments in the world. It offers singles, doubles & mixed for every age category from 30+ to 90+, for men and women.

Helge Albrecht of Germany has run this tournament for 30 years with a dedicated crew of assistants. Every player receives a collared shirt (and there are men’s and women’s sizes!), a nice towel, all in a shopping bag. Plus there is prize money. This will be the last year running this event for Helge and his crew (though they will continue to run the tournament in Feld am See), but don’t worry, a new tournament director…actually two (it takes two people to replace Helge!) will be holding this event in 2026.

The main venue is the Beach Club Font de sa Cala, with other venues including Na Taconara, Son Besso and I think the Aguait club. There are shuttles between the venues.

The first week of the tournament this year is hosting the 65-90 divisions, since the ITF Masters World Team Championships for the 75/80/85 divisions is being held in Bol, Croatia beginning on October 6th. This week began today, Sept 27 and finishes October 3; The younger divisions are played the following week.

I drove from the Palma area yesterday to Font de sa Cala, stopping along the way to pick up my strung racquet at the Jofre Porta Academy. I also stopped in Font de sa Cala at Lidl, barely arriving in time since it closes from 1-3 or thereabouts for lunch. I got some vegetables, fresh rolls, salmon and chicken and headed over to the townhouse I’ve rented for the week, just across the street from the Beach Club Font de sa Cala, the main venue of the tournament.

After checking in I walked over to the club to register and pick up by shirt and towel, and after waiting for 10 minutes, I was also able to book a practice court for today, though in the end our practice times were changed first by the tournament (which needed the morning court I’d booked) and then by me (switching venues to Son Besso). Then I took a nice walk up to Na Taconara and back along the sea for a bit.

I had a bye today so practiced a fair amount, first with my doubles partner Chris French from GBR then with Laura De Vittori of Italy who happen to be the top seeds in the 65s. Son Besso is a very nice club with 10 courts run by a small and dedicated group of women…the courts are very nicely maintained and pretty slow. From the porch of the clubhouse I could see the bright blue of the Mediterranean Sea. There used to be a nice restaurant there…I think covid killed it off though.

Tomorrow I play 70 singles at noon at Son Besso, where I practiced today. In 65 doubles we are waiting for a match which will take place tomorrow afternoon…we play the winner of that match and I think the team is pretty good. We are seeded third in doubles (seeding is done strictly on points and Chris doesn’t have a lot of doubles points, and since I am playing in a younger division, 30% of my points don’t count (which is weird in a way since four of my tournaments were won in the 60s division and two in 65s).