Yesterday I played and won singles and doubles. We finished around midnight, and unlike the USA (perhaps outside of NYC), things were just getting going at the RCPB (Real Club de Polo Barcelona), which was celebrating its 125th anniversary with a huge party in the polo (horse polo) field. The music was LOUD!
I played Rosa Togores in singles, my second match in our three person round robin. She arrived about 45 minutes late. She said she told them she could not get there by 6pm Thursday due to some party at work; they told me she had some sort of accident…anyway, we got started around 6:50 on court 11, which was encased in shadows at one end and in bright sun on the other. I won 61 61, not the prettiest of matches, she’s a nice player and was a nice person to play.
After my match I scouted my next round opponent who was conveniently playing one of our doubles opponents for the not before 9pm doubles match. They had a not before 7:30 start which turned out to be well after 8pm. I play Carmen Chilleda next, my opponent in last year’s final, who is the 2nd seed and a very solid player who was the #1 on the Spanish Cup team last year.
Erin Boynton won her singles match in the 60s 61 60 to advance to the final.
We got on for our doubles match around 10:30 pm. I am playing with Rosemary Everett from Australia. She played very well and we won 60 62. We were supposed to play no-ad in doubles but I forgot in the first deuce game and the last game remembered it but no one seemed to mind playing out the ad game.
It was after midnight by the time we figured out the cabify app to get a ride back to our hotel.
We play the doubles final tonight against Erin and Julie F from Australia which will hopefully be a good match. We have a not before 7:30 start instead of 9pm which is great.