The Avory Cup is a biennial competition between the USA and Great Britain. It’s an IC (International Club) match. There are dozens of IC members but GBR was the first IC club and the USA was the third, with France sandwiched in between. The IC was created “to cement the ties that bind us to all international players, to exchange greetings with them from time to time, to offer them hospitality when they come in our midst. Hands across the net, in fact, means hands across the ocean.” (From www.ictennis.net ) For more information on the USA IC club  go to https://www.usictennis.org/.

This year is the 10th meeting of GBR and USA in the Ted Avory Cup. Previous competitions have been held at Wimbledon, Merion Cricket Club, La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club and other great venues. We are playing at Wild Dunes Resort near Charleston, SC.

The age divisions contested this year are Men’s open, 35, 55, 60 & 65 and Women’s open, 35, 50, 55 & 60. There are two singles players in each age division and in some, additional doubles players. On Wednesday, it was 1 vs 2 and 2 vs 1 in singles, followed by women’s and men’s doubles. Tomorrow it’s 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2 and mixed doubles (W50/M55, W55/M60 & W60/M65). All matches are best of three sets with a match tiebreak in lieu of a third set.

There’s a big social aspect to this too…there were dinners last night and tonight and lunch today and tomorrow between singles and doubles. The Brits will be given a tour of Charleston on Friday if they wish.

Today it was pretty even after singles but the USA did very well in doubles and are in good shape going into tomorrow’s matches.

Wendy McColskey and I are playing for the 60s and our opponents are the #1 and #2 players from the British Marble Cup team. Today I played Pauline Fisher and Wendy played Frances Candy; tomorrow I play Frances which is always tough and Wendy plays Pauline. We had a great doubles today, winning 10-8 in the match tiebreak. We switched sides receiving after the first set and that made a big difference.

Danny Waldman won his doubles with Paul Wulf despite having a broken ring finger on his right hand.  Mark Vines was undefeated today in singles and doubles. Cindy Johnson fell just short against Sue Bartlett as did Paul Wulf. Wendy and Frances Candy had a good laugh after their match.

The British 60s and 55s women’s teams: Pauline Fisher, Anne Clark, Frances Candy and Sue Bartlett.

It was nice to see Armistead Neely here and he’s been hitting every day and taking photos.

Tracy Houk and Ann Pellow are both rookie Avory Cup members.