The semis were played today. The 40s, after long matches yesterday, played quickly today. Renata Marcinkowska showed off her shot variety in her 60 61 win over Kathy Vick (who played 4 hours plus yesterday plus doubles). Kathy said that she felt her age for a change, but gave full credit to Renata for playing an excellent match. (Her opponent from yesterday, Renee Tharpe, won her singles back draw match today and played 3 sets of doubles.). Robin Keener beat Van Raalte 61 63, but the second set lasted over an hour and was full of very long rallies.
40 Doubles: Vick/Brigandi cruised past Bohac/Zimmerman in one semi, but the top seeds and defending champions, Diane Fishburne/Mary Dailey had to go the distance to beat Tharpe/Waldon 64 in the third.
Fishburne also reached the final in the 50 singles, beating Nichols 46 64 60. She was lagging 4-3 in the second but found a higher gear, eliminated her errors, found her winnners and lost few points in the third set. That match finished before the other semi. In a rematch of their semi in the World Championships in May, Robin Harris and Susan Wright played three sets. The two, who have known each other since they were playing 12 & unders, have similar game styles, though Wright is more aggressive. Wright had set points in the first set at 5-4, but failed to convert and Harris went on to win the set 7-5. Wright became steadier and won the final sets 64 63.
Harris/Ramsower-Pearlstein reached the doubles final with a 63 75 win over Mary Morgan, Janet Bezmalinovich and Wright/Marianne Robertson ousted Sherri Bronson/Frances O’Sullivan 62 64. Bronson/O’Sullivan started lobbing effectively (well, Sherri lobbed a lot) and getting back a lot of balls, frustrating their more aggressive opponents at times.
Another nice day here…finalst and playoffs tomorrow, and feed-in finals on Saturday.