USTA National Women’s 60/70/80 Clay Courts, Baton Rouge, LA

There is a new site for the 60/70/80 Clay Courts, which is the Bocage Racquet Club in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (the state capital of Louisiana). There is also a men’s Category II which starts on Wednesday, and the numbers of players in that event dwarfs the women’s entries, even though the women’s event is a Category I and a Grade 2 ITF tournament.

The club members and the tournament staff have been welcoming and are working on plying the players with food. There are diners Monday-Friday plus food in the morning. Also, there seems to be a restaurant here for every person in the city.

I arrived Saturday and practiced some yesterday and today. I play Debbie Burgess tomorrow in singles. The doubles doesn’t start till tomorrow and since there are only 9 teams, there’s only one round of 16 match. We play Leslie Murveit/Burgess first round in doubles.

The courts here are hydrocourts and seem very nice and well maintained.The club as an “90% all white attire” rule (other than shoes and warm ups), so I had to scramble for white clothes before I came here. There’s also a pool and fitness facility, and a nice pro shop full of white clothing!