Tuesday was another practice day. It was also a wet morning. I was to practice with MJ but the courts were wet, and as it turned out that was for the best, since she had to go back to Canada as her mother is very ill. 🙏
I did practice at noon with Marcus, someone MJ and Rudy met at dinner at their hotel, as did I on Sunday night. He’s a former ATP player and we had a nice hit. Then I was off to Villach to get a practice court for myself and my doubles parter this week, Shirley Friedl from Austria, and also for Bruno and Martin, all of whom drove down from flooded Vienna yesterday. They were to have taken a train but the floods disrupted everything.
We had a good hit as well and I finally got my racquet properly strung…it only took three tries as the machine in Feld am See was basically broken. So it’s an expensive restring job: 2 x labor and 3x string. The stringing was a couple of euros cheaper as well.
The club here has 10 outdoor courts and five indoor, thee indoor clay and two indoor carpet, locker rooms and a large restaurant. It’s actually in Warmbad Villach, outside the city center a ways. I’m only 4 minutes away by car which is great (but a bicycle would be even better!). I drive on a narrow 2-way lane past fields and horses.
Shirley and I are practicing in about an hour, then I may go see a castle after lunch and exercises…and I play tomorrow in this tournament. The tournament was supposed to start Monday, delayed the start to Tuesday and delayed our division for some reason till Wednesday.