Photos are here.
Wednesday was semifinal day in Mallorca. There were some ominous looking clouds in the not too distant sky as we waited for our court assignment. It was also very windy (not by Florida standards though). I played my warm up partner for the week, Dagmar Sperneder. We had a good warm up and then were out on the same court 15 minutes later. I posted a solid win (and hit about half a dozen aces which was a personal best against a decent player), as did Sabine Schmidt, the top seed, who took out Encarnacion Gomez-Ruiz in the other semi. Sabine said Encarnita was a bit tired/hurt from her long three setter the day before. We both finished by 10am, and had to play through intermittent showers, which still feels weird for someone who grew up on California hard courts where rain = stop playing! These clay courts absorbed the showers, though just as we finished it started raining a lot harder.
I didn’t watch a lot of tennis today because I moved into the apartment I rented for the rest of my stay. It turned out to be just across the street from the tennis courts, the location couldn’t be better. So now I have fast wifi (fiber), and a washer and dryer, a nice patio with a barbecue. The flat comes complete with an outdoor cat and food to give it. Of course, after transferring my luggage I had to hit the grocery store, Lidl and Eroski. Lidl is a lot like the European Aldi (quite a bit different though from American Aldi stores). I felt like a pro at the store…got bread, sliced and bagged it, a selection of Spanish cheeses they had which looked interesting, turkey, apples (of course), various drinks and items I hadn’t packed. The eggs of course weren’t refrigerated. They always have Feltsalat (I don’t know the word in English…something like lambs lettuce)..[update: it IS lambs lettuce] which is hard to find in the USA and delicious. And at the Eroski, some mango chutney sauce which is great on sandwiches. No peanut butter to be found though, so I’ll have to get that on the other side of the Island Friday or Saturday.
There were some interesting results today though. Stephen Dance from Australia (given special permission to travel as was Andrew Rae) upset #1 Fritz Raijmakers of Netherlands, handing Fritz his first 65s ITF loss of the year, 75 64. the conditions were really difficult with the wind and rain, but Stephen was the steadier player. The men’s 80s final will feature Jaime Pinto Bravo from Chile (who looks nowhere near his age and plays like a much younger man), who won 60 60 while Peter Pokorny had to fight hard to beat #4 seeded Eckard Kaercher 10-8 in the match tiebreak. Pokorny looked good too, hitting his topspin lefty forehand over Kaercher’s head a times.
In women’s 70, Heidi Eisterlehner (1) will face Leyla Musalem (2) of Chile in the final. Heide Orth will face her doubles partner Suzy Burggraf in the final.
