The draws are up and can be found here for the ITF Seniors World Team Championships: https://seniortennisblog.com/2016/02/03/usa-2016-senior-teams-finland/

The opening day of the ITF World Team Seniors Championships were held today in Finland and were nicely done. The players were rounded up on two courts and organized by country and then announced and marched into the stadium court. Then there was an entertainer who could make interesting noises with out instruments (more entertaining than one would think!). The Finnish national anthem was sung and there was a reception with hors d’oerves.

While we were waiting to march onto the center court I was able to capture photos of our team players

Alex Behar and Cindy Johnson are this year’s rookies on a team along with Jeff Burnett. 

The captains’ meetings were held today and the draws and results (once play begins) can be found here: https://seniortennisblog.com/2016/02/03/usa-2016-senior-teams-finland/

USA is the top seed in five of the six cups. The men’s 50s, Fred Perry Cup team is seeded but not number 1.

The Alice Marble Cup team, my team will play every tie starting in the mid-afternoon; warm up at 1:30 and 2 (one court for each team to warm up on for 30 minutes) then match play at 2:40. Since we play #2 singles then #1 singles, then doubles, we will be having some late nights, but not early mornings.There are five teams playing at our site which has only 22 courts so they are scheduling 3 ties at 9am and 2 at 2:40. The sixth team, the Connolly Cup team, W5 55 is at another venue and has a 10am start. These tiered starts are going to lead to long long days for  the ITF staff, the referees and the volunteers. a nearly 3pm start is not ideal but at least we can sleep in! Sherri, who likes to sleep a looong time, is rather delighted by the 2:40pm start.

We are seeded #1 and play Sweden tomorrow. The third team in our group is Canada and if we win our group we will most likely play Germany in the semis. The other top four seeds are Gr. Britain and France.

After the opening ceremonies, there was a mad dash for the bus, in increasingly heavy rain. I was dashing for the bus when I heard my name called and a car door opening. I dashed to the car, jumped in and off we went…Theresa Bowen from the USTA (going to her hotel), Vesna, Cindy and Vicki, all of whom are sharing the apartment with me. Theresa’s hotel is just up the street from our apartment and we were really happy for the lift (thank you!). Cindy and Vesna were pretty funny on the ride…Cindy was pushing Vesna’s buttons and vice versa in a light hearted way. We got home, I cooked dinner and just as we were ready to eat the buzzer sounded. Susan didn’t have a key and had been caught in the rain waiting for a bus…apparently she saw me dash off into the car but didn’t know who was in the car or the USA warm up from the back! She looked pretty drowned but perked up once she got some food into her.

The 50s, Vesna’s team, has to catch the 7am bus for practice, the 55s, Susan, Vicki and Cindy have an 8am bus to catch, and I have a ….1pm bus.

That’s all for now from Helsinki…I’m working on uploading photos but will post most of them in the morning.