Today I played Cornelia Keller in the semis at the Rottach Courts, a nicer venue than yesterday. Cornelia is a nice lady, and has an interesting game. She throws the ball up very high on her serve and has a big, side arm sort of swing before she eventually hits the ball as it’s descending. However she got it in almost every time and reasonably deep, which is what counts on clay. She hits with 2 hands on both sides and slices the ball on the rise. I played pretty consistently and came to net pretty often, since she hit quite a few short balls and won 60 60. I play Gundi Weiland in the final. She was very solid in beating Olga Markova 61 62 today. We played in a final earlier in the summer and I won, but here the balls are a little different, Dunlop Fort instead of Wilson US Open hard court and Gundi seems to be in stellar form. So I expect a battle.

We finished about 5pm, since we got on late, but not as late as yesterday. Bridget Harrer and Debbie Hobbs came to watch and after sweeping the court and taking some photos we decided to have an early dinner around 6 at the club. About that time Julie Dybenthal’s husband Knute called and asked if I could play doubles right then. I had asked earlier if I had doubles today, and was told it wasn’t on the schedule but that there would be a draw. And the doubles was supposed to take place at the other club in Durnbach, at the far end of the lake from Rottach and I don’t have a car. So, since one of the doubles teams wouldn’t play 2 matches in doubles tomorrow and Julie couldn’t stay till Sunday, the doubles isn’t going to happen.

This area is really nice and the gentleman in charge at Rottach seems very competent but the running of this tournament (done from the Durnbach club) is not the best. Debbie and Bridget lost on Wednesday and have been hanging around since, waiting for consolation singles and to play doubles. They had asked to be put into the 45 doubles, which was where I was playing but the tournament said they didn’t do it (even though later on they were shown in the draw).  I asked about consolation and was told that the referee in Durnbach said that the ITF forbids combining of consolation age divisions, so for women there was no consolation except in the 70s. Several players had their times changed today without notice, some to earlier times and some to later times. On the plus side, the area is nice and the courts are pretty good.   I am lucky since I the players won today and I get to play again tomorrow. So far I am really enjoying the clay. 

Heide Orth lost today, to Michelle Bichon in a tough match 76 in the third, but it was at the other site so I didn’t get to see it. Julie lost her match. Heidi Attlefellner lost to Garaguly, the 4th seed in the 70s (but she upset the #2 seed, Nanda Fischer in the first round and got to the semis). Wayne Cowley from Australia came down with food poisoning or a bug of some sort so had to default his semis. He has a week to rest though before the next tournament in Hungary.

Photo below: Ellen, Carolyn and Cornelia; Bridget and Debbie