Monday October 18, 2021
Today I played my first singles match at the ITF Super Senior World Championships, ten days after my last match in the ITF 1000 here. I warmed up with Sabine Schmitz, my doubles partner at 8:15 (sunrise is about 8am). I played at Son Besso tennis club about five minutes from Font de sa Cala. I practiced there a few days ago and my match ended up being on the same court. I arrived early at Son Besso had my temperature taken (I was NOT hot headed), and watched Patricia Medrado, a former top 30 player and multiple ITF singles and doubles champion play as well as Tina Karwasky. Both cruised to victory and Medrado was very impressive in her movement. Tina was all over the net and also played really well.
I played Christiane Deryckere of Belgium. I’ve played her several times before and we’ve had some good sets. She started out blasting the ball, and hitting quite a few winners. But I figured out some of her pattens (and she made some errors on big points), and won 61 60 but it was nearly 1 1/2 hours including warm up. However she plays quite a bit slower than I do, or at least did so today. There were a few interesting moments; after I won the first game of the second set she was sitting down on the changeover and I reminded her that she could not do that after the first game of set (she didn’t sit down after the first game of the match). She asked when that rule changed (around 2000)…but it turns out she thought the set score was 62, not 61 (even though the scoreboard showed it to be 61), so her confusion made sense, in retrospect (after the match). We had a fair match; she called a ball out on herself (it was 8 inches out but I had trouble finding the mark initially); I called a serve out but overruled myself when looking at the mark (it just caught). In ITFs which aren’t chaired a player can be invited over to the other end of the court to check a mark; Christiane wasn’t sure of whether a mark was in or out and so called me over (it grazed the line in my opinion, and she gave me the point).
Sabine won easily over Hildegarde Bruggaber, who said she played well but came away with only two games. I play Dagmar Sperneder again (I played her in the semis of the ITF 1000 two weeks ago); she beat Leena Ranta of Finland in a good match 64 76.
In the afternoon we (Sabine and I) played doubles against Rosa Mendoza from Peru and Barbara Tsur from Israel. So we had players from four continents on the court, North & South America, Europe and Asia. Pretty cool. We won 60 60.
After the match we watched a dramatic women’s 70s match between two Germans, #4 seeded Heide Froeysok and Irene Smutny. They were half way through the second set when we started our doubles, and were at about 21 in the third when we finished. Another doubles match went on after our match and also finished before the women’s match (granted it was a 60 60 match). Heide finally won 76(5) in the third but not before Irene had two match points at 6-5 and led 52 in the tiebreak. Neither player held serve in the final set. There was quite a crowd watching to see who could finish off the match, which started about 1:30 and finished just before 5:30.
Round up of American results: Tina Karwasky won singles/doubles in the 65s; Doug Ditmer/Daniel Grossman and Danny Shaw all advanced in 65 doubles; Danny Waldman won in 65 singles; Michael Beautyman and Donald Long advanced in 75 singles while Miguel Cordova lost; Beautyman/Les Buck won in 75 doubles as did Dean Corley/Don Long (top seeds) and George Balch/Karol Placek (by default); Heide Orth won in 75 singles and plays the Finnish player she lost to in the Cup last week; Robert Anderman won in men’s 80 singles; Donna Fales won in women’s 80 singles; Anderman/Thomas Brunkow advanced in 80 doubles; Fales/Dorothy Wasser won in 80 doubles; Four of the eight remaining players in the men’s 85s are American: top seeded King Van Nostrand; unseeded Herm Ahlers (who beat the #8 seed), Chuck Nelson (beat the #7 seed…all that practice the week of the Cups must have helped) and Ned Buckman (beat the #4 seed). Van Nostrand, Buckman/Nelson all advanced to the doubles semis. Sheila Palmer lost in 85 singles and 80 doubles. Leona Bryson hasn’t played doubles yet.
Tomorrow I play singles only; all of the quarters in the 65s are at 10:30 except my match which is at 2:30 for some reason. I play at Beach Club Font de sa Cala. The schedule for the tournament is not done for the week as is normal in USTA tournaments…each evening an order of play is posted for the next day, so from day to day one may play only singles or doubles or mixed or all three, but till about 5pm it’s a mystery.
