I arrived in Huntsville yesterday..my first time to Alabama and my first 60s tournament. (Draws can be found here: http://tennislink.usta.com/tournaments/TournamentHome/Tournament.aspx?T=156717)

The airport was modern and resoundingly empty when I landed around 6pm yesterday. There’s been lots of rain up here and so there’s lots of green here, a stark contrast to California.

The tournament is being held at the Huntsville Tennis Center, a large facility with 24 lighted clay courts and six hard courts (also lighted).  The court layout, clubhouse and a photo of Court 1 are shown below.

It rained hard during the night but stopped early in the morning and so I meandered over to the club mid-morning. However, the courts weren’t open till after 1pm..they are very slow drying it seems, not so good since the weather forecast for next week isn’t very dry. (Note the 100% chance of rain for Monday.)

Today I hit with Rita Giles, her doubles partner Mary Richardson and Ruby Jenkins who is in the 70s and we had a set of doubles (lots of fun) and Rita and I hit some singles. The courts are pretty soft with Court 10 in particular having some dead spots (we started in 11 and were bumped so moved to 10…they played differently).

The tournament starts tomorrow but I have a bye as do all eight of the seeds, so I play the winner of a match on Sunday morning.  The map below shows where all the players are from this year…not too many local players, but lots from the northeast…and SoCal.