Wednesday was the rain day, but the past two days have been training days at GlobalTennisTeam near Palma, Mallorca. i learned about it from another senior player, Andrew and also from Bruce, a US player from Florida.
The biggest problem I had was just finding Global the first time. By today, Friday, I could find it without GPS…so it’s on to another driving challenge, finding the spot where I am to return my rental car and then the airport and then Font de sa Cala on the opposite end of the island. But that’s for another day.
Tuesday I trained for 90 minutes in the morning and afternoon with a one hour fitness/stretching in between. I was beat at the end of the day, so the rain on Wednesday wasn’t all bad.
Yesterday I trained for 90 minutes in the morning and afternoon followed by fitness for an hour. After warming up and hitting and doing serves, we did various drills mostly clay court patterns and more in the afternoon. In between I watched some of the juniors, who are in constant motion. Tennis here is taught with the feet being very important though of course technique is also very important. Several are very good players and do well in the European junior tournaments, but others are already playing futures as the cost is the same. . There’s on boy who just started Tuesday here, he’s from Alabama and only 11.
Jenny Cerff arrived yesterday from South Africa to train some and play in the Mallorca tournament next week. We both had training in the morning, then, since we had a 4.5 hour break, and since I could now navigate the round trip to Palm in under an hour, I gave Jenny a small tour of Palma. We walked to the Cathedral, past all the boats (including three huge cruise ships in the harbor today) and down some of the old town streets and did a bit of browsing in the shops.
In the afternoon, I learned some more drills and did point play for the tournament; Bruce Barrett arrived from Croatia and he and Jenny trained in the afternoon too, and got ready for mixed doubles.
The draws came out tonight and can be found here. (click on drawsheet to see draws; on order of play to see daily results).