Thursday October 21, 2021
Today was a day off for singles but Sabine Schmitz and I played Hildegard Bruggraber/Christiane Deryckere. In contrast to our last match, everyone was from Europe except me, Sabine from Germany, Hildegard from Austria and Christiane from Belgium. We started well, winning the first set 62, and leading 53 in the second but from there it was tricky as our opponents started playing better and the sun became tricky. We had a match point at 54 and Hildegard actually hit the ball wide but I failed to call it, so we played on and eventually ended up in a tiebreak which we lost 73. So onto the match tiebreak which I don’t have much experience with. They had the momentum and forged 5-1 and 6-5 leads…maybe even 7-5. We then cut down on errors and went up 9-7, and as a loud altercation took place on the court next to us (it was an 85s match, so they probably didn’t realize how loud they were talking), I missed a shot and then it was 9-9. We finally won the match 12-10 in the tiebreak, though were never down a match point. Hildegard has improved a lot (she hadn’t lost a doubles or mixed match all year till today), and Christiane set her up nicely as the match went on. It shows how different singles and doubles are: I beat Christiane 61 60 in singles and Sabine beat Hildegard 61 61….In contrast to our meandering way to the final, Tina Karwasky and Pat Medrado won their semi 60 60. So we have our work cut out for us tomorrow. Singles is scheduled at 9am and doubles at noon.
In other action: Men’s 65, Dan Waldman advanced over Italian Paolo Moscelli 75 retired. Apparently Moscelli is a tricky opponent, reading the ball well and dropshotting well. Dan faces a different opponent on Saturday in Frits Raijmakers, the top seed and defending champion from the Netherlands, who belts the ball. Doug Ditmer and Daniel Grossman beat the #2 seeds American Danny Shaw and Swiss Peter Heller to advance to the 65 doubles final against Frits and Alan Rasmussen. In 65 mixed, Schmitz/Rasmussen beat Shaw/Bruggraber and face Marc Renoult/Benedict Legrand in the final; they beat Steven Dance/Caroline Glaszmann.
In the 70s there aren’t many Americans, but there were plenty of upsets. However, Reinhilde Adams was not one of them…the #2 seed took out Leyla Musalem of Chile and plays Heide Froeystock (4) who beat Micheline Van de Wiele (11th seed, who took out #1 Heidi Eisterlehner) 75 60. She was thrilled to reach the final. Eisterlehner did reach the doubles final, with USA Liane Bryson. They play Adams and Rotraut Spriess. In singles, Afred Boekl (2) beat Jorge Camina Borda in 3 sets and plays Bruno Renoult who beat Pedersen in 3 sets (Pedersen took out Andrew Rae yesterday). Rae is in the doubles final though with Velasco against Frans Norby/Kasper Rud of Denmark. The mixed final. is not yet set, there’s a semifinal match to be played still involving Adams.
In men’s 75, Michael Beautyman fell to Antonio Claudi of Italy, who faces Brit Chris Ornstein in the final. However, Beautyman/Les Buck won their doubles convincingly to advance to the final against Claudi/Paolo Lazzari of Italy. In women’s 75, Eisemann plays Von Ende; Eisemann/Von Ende upset top seeded Heide Orth/Suzy Burgraff who take on Chileans Lilian Eisele Pardo/Alicia Salazar Garrido. In mixed, Donna Fales/Dean Corley (USA) advanced to the final, in a match tiebreak for the second straight match (against Roger Dowdeswell/Anneke Jelsma) and play Telsche Andree/Zoltan Fabian, who won their semis against an Israeli team 11-9 in the MTB.
In the 80s, Donna Fales/Dorothy Wasser won their doubles semi 61 61 and play Germans Irmgard Gerlatzka/Elisabeth Van Boemmel in the final. Fales plays Gerlatzka in the singles final. In men’s play, Peter Pokorny and Jaime Pinto Bravo from Chile are in the singles final and doubles final (against Giovanni Argentina/Giancarlo Milesi of Italy. Mixed is a three team round robin & American Suella Steel is playing with Pokorny on Saturday (I think they played last Sunday…so it’s been a long week of waiting for Steel).
King Van Nostrand had to default his Men’s 85 singles final to fellow American Herm Ahlers due to severe tennis elbow. Ahlers will play #2 seed Herbert Althaus who beat American Ned Buckman. The doubles final was set yesterday. Gallay/Marx play Loesl/Specht in the mixed final on Saturday as was the women’s singles final.
In the first ever 90s event, Henri Crochet of France will take on Brit Leonard Lawrence in the final. They reached the final with the loss of only 1 game between them.