Umag, Croatia, Monday September 10, 2018

Umag, Croatia is in Istria, and is a summer vacation spot for Europeans…it has biking, hiking, tennis, water sports and golf. Umag also has an old downtown area and harbor and an ATP 250 tournament, won by players such as Thomas Muster, Carlos Moya, Tommy Robredo, and Dominic Thiem.

I am playing in a Grade A tournament, my last before heading back to the USA. But the next two weeks the super seniors are playing in Umag (teams and individuals), so it will be nice to see some familiar faces at the end of the week. I’m playing doubles here with Ellen Neumann in the 55s and then 60 singles.

Today was a practice & relax type of day….I warmed Ellen up for her match (she won) then had a nice 90 minute practice with Laura DiVittori of Italy who plays in the 55s. Ellen had an interesting thing happen during her match…her opponent broke a string and had only one racquet…never said anything but eventually a friend came and brought her a second racquet. I wonder what the racquet was strung at!

After we practiced, Ellen took me to the grocery store, Lidl, for supplies. I could bike there but bringing the stuff back was the issue. Then we eventually figured out how to reach my apartment in a car which was not intuitive and involved some backing up and u-turns (Ellen is a very good driver).

There was a welcome cocktail party for the tournament, and I also walked around the stadium area which has the signage up for next week and also for this week…everything is very professional.

The courts heard are VERY slow and thick with clay and the Head ATP balls are heavy. I don’t mind that but drop shots are going to be extremely effective here this week≥

The tournament website (including a link to matches which are being live streamed) is here: Tournament Web Site and Live Streaming Links