Today was devoted to all out practice. Sherri Bronson and I met up with Bueno (50) Cup members Susan Wright, Tracey Thompson and Robin Harris at 9am and went to the Junior Club to practice. I will post some photos tomorrow of the Club. It’s a private club (you need a card to even enter the premises) and has about 15 red clay courts, restaurant, pro shop and locker rooms.

One of the organizers met us and gave each team 3 Head pressureless balls. We compared them to the Penn pressureless balls brought from the USA…the Head balls are larger and a little lower bouncing. The courts had been freshly watered…we wasted no time practicing for over 90 minutes. When doing 2 on 1 drills we could all feel the altitude and smog…I thought the smog was worse, but it wasn’t awful. The balls did fly, but it wasn’t as fast as I thought it would be, though by afternoon, when the courts were extremely dry, the ball did fly more. There was only one other team there, half of the German Bueno Cup team. One of them, Gabi Weiland, was my doubles partner in a tournament in Germany last year, so it was nice to catch up.

Sherri and I ate at the club while waiting for Tina Karwasky to arrive for our 1pm practice. It was almost noon…we tried to order almuerzo (lunch), but it was still desayuno (breakfast) time…fortunately the breakfast menu included turkey sandwiches, quesadillas and coke light..and we had an easier time deciphering the breakfast menu anyway.

After another 2+ hour practice, which ended with doubles (a local player filled in for Kerry Young who is arriving tonight), we called it a day and were back at the hotel about 4pm.

I saw a lot of the American players today, all curious about the balls, courts, food (tennis players do love to eat) and practice arrangements. The desk seems pretty organized, arranging for practice courts and handing out name badges.

We practice 2 hours tomorrow, or that’s the plan. I’ll post more  photos tomorrow. Photos below are the view from my balcony.

Here’s a link to the preliminary article about the competition from the ITF website.