The seeds began play today at the 40 Hard Courts and there was some good tennis! I won my match (the woman I played was recovering from abdominal surgery though…) 60 60 and play the #2 seed and defending champion Dina McBride tomorrow. I have my “performance goals” set anyway. Una and I lost our doubles to a decent team but hope to get them back in the back if we get that far. It was a pretty fun match other than that we lost and that the sun was brutal from one side, I was guessing where the ball was located on some rallies. As you may infer from this, it was super sunny and really beautiful and in the upper 60s here today…with negligible wind.

I watched a bit of Amy Frazier’s match today. She is a former tour player and in fact sent Steffi Graf into retirement, beating Graf in her last professional match. She peaked at #13 in the world. She’s also quite tall, taller than I remembered, about 5’10” I think. She played a LJBTC member and won 61 60. All the seeds in the 40s advanced in women’s singles and doubles.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j44tVM7CnQE&feature=youtu.be

However, on the men’s side, the #2 seed, Josh Oswald, who was the #1 player on the Tony Trabert Cup this year, fell to Lew Miller, a former member of several Italia Cup teams, 61 61 first round. Miller was super steady. A few lower seeds fell too, all to excellent wild cards. Several Brazilian players are here including Marcio Carlsson, a former Brazilian Davis Cup player whose best career win is Jim Courier. He topped out at 119 in the world in singles. His sole Grand Slam appearance came at the Australian Open. He did win his opening match and he’s the #4 seed. Tony Bujan is the top seed and defending champion.

In men’s doubles, the eight seeds all advanced to the semis; top seeds USC coach Peter Smith and Neal Grover advanced without dropping a game.