The USA women’s 75s, the Queens Cup, beat France 2/0 behind the singles play of Donna Fales and Lyn Little. Fales, playing first at #2 singles dropped only a game to put the USA up 1/0. Lyn Little struggled on the slow red clay against Inger Delamare but won the marathon 46 64 76 (5) to clinch the win. Thunderstorms and heavy rains meant the doubles went unplayed, at least for today. They play either Great Britain or Germany in the semis.
The USA men’s 75s, the Bitsy Grant Cup, was 1/1 with France when the rains came. Rudy Hernando, playing at #2, nearly had a great comeback; he won the first set and was down 51 in the second before rallying to force a tiebreak, saving two set points in the process. He told me he played a bad tiebreak to lose the set. He lost the third set 64, saving two match points before succumbing. Joe Bachmann won at #2 singles in straight sets. That leaves USA, France and Sweden each with two wins, but since USA won both its matches 3/0, USA advances to the final regardless of the outcome of the 9am doubles match tomorrow. USA then plays #2 seeded Austria in the semis starting at 10am tomorrow, weather permitting.
All USA teams are in action tomorrow or the next day. The weather forecast is iffy for today and tomorrow…it’s raining, with occasional thunder and lightning but the weather should improve by Friday and return to sunny and low 70s.
The Doris Hart Cup team, is in a RR for the Cup with Argentina and Great Britain. The USA was seeded third while GBR and ARG were unseeded. GBR beat #2 France 2/1 while ARG upset #1 AUS 2/1. The USA narrowly avoided a similar fate when it beat New Zealand 2/1 yesterday. USA is guaranteed a medal.
The Godfree Cup team has another day off tomorrow.
The Gibson Cup team plays the loser of GBR and AUS tomorrow or Friday. They are playing for fifth.
The Britannia Cup team plays Denmark or GBR tomorrow…the match was undecided when it started raining. It’s 5:20pm and it’s still raining. It’s a quarterfinal.
The Jack Crawford Cup team plays GBR tomorrow in the quarters.
The Gardnar Mulloy Cup team plays Germany tomorrow or Friday in the semifinals.
For live streaming of Courts 1, Center and Grandstand at the Umag stadium see the link below (htsv-hr/live-stream).
I started the day early. It was pouring at around 5am, so I thought that our 6:45 hit would be a non-event. But by 5:30 when I looked out the stars were out and it was breezy. So I went down at 6:30, and when Cindy wasn’t there, sent a few texts and rode off to the courts figuring she’d slept in and I would get to hit serves and do an on court work out at least. But she arrived just after I had swept the court and enjoyed the sunrise. Brian Cheney and his team arrived shortly afterwards and we had a great hit. The courts were perfect and the roosters slept in today, we never heard them.
