Bordeaux, France, Wednesday (WiFi was down Tuesday….)

After a long weekend watching my nephew getting married (The Carmel Mission Church is beautiful as was the wedding), I drove to SFO. I had a stop in Scott’s Valley (bear Santa Cruz) for a tennis match. We interrupted the match several times to listen to Wimbledon Radio as the men’s final kept going…

I flew Tap Airlines to Lisbon. It arrived late but I made my connection. Neither flight left from a gate. We were bused to the terminal a long way. There were only stairs, not ramps.

I cleared passport control and security and made my flight where we waited for quite a while, 20-30 minutes outside on steps for a bus, then once again were driven to the plane.

The flight to Bordeaux was smooth and my bags came pretty quickly. I arrived at my lodgings on time. After a walk to the market I went to the club, only 10 minutes away by foot and hit some balls with Sue Bartlett, with whom I am playing doubles this week. The courts, red clay of course, are very very dry and quite fast for red clay.

I won my first round on Tuesday over Sylvia Shipley from Great Britain. Sue had a tough match with Fiona Walker, winning 75 64. The second set was pretty topsy-turvy. Sue led 30- 40-15, Fiona leveled at 4-4, redlining her ground strokes. Sue was up 5-4 but down 40-0 with Fiona serving and won five points on the trot to finish the match. Sylvia is shown below.

I play the #1 Spanish player tomorrow, Thursday, but we play Fiona and Shirley today in doubles.

Ross Persons from the USA, a member of the men’s 60 Cup team is here, one of the few Americans in the draw.

Draws are here.