I played my first round today against Marianne Nesselhauf, who is from Ottersweier. I know quite a few people in my draw, but she wasn’t one of them. I won 60 60. I warmed up with Nora Blom from the Netherlands, an excellent lefty who moves really well. She’s on the other side of the draw though. Tomorrow I have a much tougher draw, against another lefty, Caroline Glaszmann from France. She had a good match today against a German player who belts the ball. The second seed, Dagmar Sperneder, from Austria,  lost in three sets to a German player. I saw her smoking during changeovers…she won the first set and lost the next two. The seeding here is done strictly using ITF rankings, no “seeding exemptions”, even for Nora, who has won the tournament several years in a row. If I beat Glaszmann, I have a second match tomorrow, so it will be a long day.

I also took a bus in the afternoon and then a train (funicular) up a 2000 foot high hill to see the views of the city and the hang gliders taking off, which they were doing in profusion.

The days are really long here…it’s light before 5am and not dark till nearly 10pm.

Here is a link to the draws. http://www.tennis-web.net/trn/1793/