Draws for the ITF 1000 which starts tomorrow are up, click here.
The past three days have been busy but not too exciting. Today is Thursday, the day before the ITF 1000 begins in Mallorca.
Tuesday I left Consell. I woke up early and decided I needed to move my big suitcase to my car before the workers who are tearing up the street in front of the apartment where I stayed began to finish the job. It was a good think I did get it out early, there was no more paving by the time I was ready to carry out the rest of my stuff later…and I had packed weights…literally, in my small rolling bag so it was very heavy but one of the workers carried it to the pavement for me! Very nice.
After leaving Consell, I trained for 90 minutes at Global Tennis, stopped by Aldi for lunch and then drove across the Island to Font de sa Cala to the accommodations I made here. It was a little over an hour drive, mostly through the middle of the Island, much of it quite pretty, past Petra and other pretty Mallorcan villages.
Wednesday I did not play but got organized and drove back across the Island, first to pick up my racquet at Global and then to return the rental car and go to the airport to meet Susan Wright and Jenny Cerff (from South Africa). Jenny was already there, but Susan’s flight was bit late. Next stop was another rental car company, Roig (seems to be very good) to get a new car where both Susan and I are the authorized drivers. We loaded everything into the car which was quite nice…only to realize it was a manual (stick) transmission. Ten minutes later we had a nice Peugeot that is a diesel automatic. Susan drove back to Font de sa Cala, I navigated, she got used to the many roundabouts on the Island, and we had only one detour, though Capdapera where Susan got a taste of driving in a typical Mallorcan village where the streets are barely a car’s width wide. She managed though. We hit Lidl for dinner food and got to our place with light to spare.
Today we practiced at 9 and 12, I hit with Dave Sivertson, USA and Susan and Jenny hit. It is warm, upper 70s for a high but cool in the evenings, and somewhat surprising to me, very humid…not Florida humid but noticeable.
After practice, lunch (Mallorcan bread, avocado, tomato and anchovies…yum!) etc, we went for a drive to the Capdepera lighthouse (Faro de Capdepera), which is not too far and did not entail too much walking. The road there though is also not much wider than one car and is a two-way road! The views, even without being able to enter the lighthouse, were beautiful with the deep blue Mediterranean and cliffs rising up out of it. All in all a busy and fun day.
I play at 4:30 tomorrow at the Beach Club Font de sa Cala and Jenny plays at 3 at Tennis Club Son Besso, with the winners of our match to play each other unfortunately.