I played the final today in Mallorca. As usual I warmed up with Dagmar Sperneder at 8:30. We were scheduled to play at 10:30 and got on around 11. Today was partly cloudy, breezy and overall a nice day for tennis. The sun here is pretty low…despite being known as a warm vacation spot, Mallorca is pretty far north, just east of Barcelona and not so far from France. (The year round spot in Spain is Marbella to the south.) So this time of year the days are getting short and the sun is a bit challenging.
Sabine started well…volleying effectively and I missed a lot of backhands at the beginning…and Sabine made very few errors the first part of the match. She also has a wicked forehand drop shot. We went back and forth and I served at 4-5, and then finished off the set 75. I fixed a few tactical and technical issues towards the end of the first set too. The second set turned on the fourth game…I was up 2/1 but down 0-40, but scrambled very hard that game (I ran A LOT, and hit a lot of high lobs, which in the sun here are difficult to put away, especially since Sabine was not wearing sunglasses). I somehow won that game, then finished off the match 61. It was a fun match overall…lots of people were watching (they were not cheering for me but were fair) which made for a good atmosphere. I won a towel (that says winner on it…if you are second you get a “finalist” towel…nice big towels too) a gold medal and 400 Euros which was really nice!
In men’s 65, there was a marathon with Steve Dance from Australia losing to Martin Cornish from England in three very tough sets, 75 in the third…after which he had whole body cramps.
Andrew Rae from Australia won the men’s 70s over Jairo Velasco Ramirez, Spain in straight sets.
Jaime Pinto Bravo from Chile won the mens’ 80s over Peter Pokorny, Austria.
Herbert Althaus of Germany beat Ralf Bruse of Germany in men’s 85.
The men’s 75 was going on when I left with Peter Adrigan down a set to Hans-Peter Balke, both from Germany.
In Women’s 75, Suzy Burgraff beat Heide Orth 64 61.
Irmgard Gerlatzka won the four person 80s round robin over Elisabeth Van Boemmel. (She had the gold medal.
The women’s 70s was just starting when I left, and looked to be a good match. I’ll add a list of winners to this post tomorrow.
Tomorrow I’m going touring with a couple of players, then back to the courts on Saturday.
Here is the list of the top four finishers in each category: