Thursday June 12, 2025
Yesterday, Wednesday I played singles at 8:30 against Marcia Jackson from Canada. She was pretty sick so we kept our distance and she didn’t run much (she was afraid that she wouldn’t be allowed to play doubles if she defaulted or retired from singles, so mostly didn’t run for balls, I know she could have if she’d felt better). I won pretty quickly, and Vicki dropped me back at the apartment I rented while she played her match at the nearby Gray Rocks green clay.
I did some exercises and had lunch while Vicki waited for a court and played. We did not play doubles yesterday, so took advantage of the down time to each get a massage, which was nice after all the travel. Below is Jacques, the tournament director working on the computer.
There was a pizza party last night for the players but I cooked the salmon we’d bought and we had an early night…I was asleep by 8pm! Not an eventful day but a recharging one.
Today, Thursday, I again played at 8:30 and the women’s 60/65 were not scheduled at all. I beat American Helge Immerfall from Vermont (a four-hour drive she told me) 60 61 to win the tournament. It was colder today (temperature around 15C/59F) and we played on a court adjacent to the lake so there was a brisk breeze coming off the lake. Vicki warmed me up for 40 minutes on the red clay first. Playing at 8:30 is easy when one goes to sleep at 8pm!
The chair umpire for my match made me change my hat which was a USA hat embroidered with the date and location of this year’s world championships. And he’s one that doesn’t allow smart watches to be worn (though Helga had one under her long sleeved shirt the entire match. The weird thing about the hat was that I’d been wearing it all week! (The reason given being that all attire bearing country names was forbidden…including at the ITF Individual world championships! News to me.) The chair umpire said they’d been instructed not to call all the lines, all they would do was check marks if someone asked. Weird inconsistency in applications of ITF Masters rules I think.
We play doubles on green clay across the street from the red clay, at 1:30pm today. We are only in the quarters…I finished my singles before even beginning the doubles.
I’ll write about the doubles tomorrow…