Friday was another beautiful day in Turkey. More and more players are arriving who were to play in the World Championships and despite its cancellation, came anyway…from Australia, Germany and more.

The Americans, Vicky, Christina, Jenny, Susan and I, practiced along with Sophie from Ireland, Erin from Canada, and Deborah from Great Britain…also John from Australia, and the Mexican team was practicing with another Aussie, Norbert Henn from Germany and his team came a bit later…and there are many more.

We hit in various combinations from 9:30-12 or thereabouts, then after lunch hit again, Susan, Christina and Jenny with the three Mexican players and Sophie, Erin, Vicky and I with each other. I learned a different scoring system for Dingles (and a different court dimension…doubles court for the rally part instead of singles court).

I finished around 4:45 or so then went to the gym till it closed and then went outside to stretch and finish my exercises, finishing around 6:45, just in time to change for dinner. Jenny Rens et al organized a big table of players. The food stations are slowly filling out, though the dining room is still half empty. Soups today were good (once I added some hot pepper spice) and there’s always fresh salad makings, pasta, pan grilled chicken and beef, rice, French fries and some casseroles plus tons of desserts.

I’m finishing up our trip to Italy…normally not done at the last minute, but there’s still work to be done.

No word yet on the hotel situation (which is: cancel 7 days in advance or you have to pay for three nights). The problem is that the worlds were cancelled only on Wednesday night and most people were traveling on Thursday or Friday…no time to cancel in time. Hopefully some agreement to make this less onerous can be made. There have been meetings, that is all I know.