Today I had a match at noon, and Erin had the day off from singles. I played a French woman, Patricia Labat Labarrere (corrected name!), who was a pretty good mover, and had a decent slice and a moonball off of her forehand and off low balls, a drive as well. We had some nice rallies, but I won 60 60. It was nice to be out on court competing though.
I watched bits of other matches. Pierre Godfroid, another French player, has an unusual style for clay, very compact strokes and he serves and volleys and chips and charges a lot. He played a German player who was pretty good, but Pierre won in straight sets.
After I played and watched, I walked around a bit; this really is a pretty place and the water is so blue when the sun shines, all shades of blue and very clear.
I have a day off again from singles which is a bummer while Erin has singles, then if we win our first doubles tomorrow, two doubles starting at 3pm. Erin plays the #1 seed at noon, so had better not play any three hour match tomorrow! They didn’t really start the doubles when they should have, with a match on Tuesday, so the whole draw is behind; Ann Stanley has the possibility of doubles, then mixed, then doubles back to back to back tomorrow, since for some reason Ann didn’t play women’s doubles today.
Michael Beautyman from the USA won today; Greg Shephard lost his singles but with Tom Bryan won doubles; Jeff Dearth lost; Andrew Stanley, who is British but lives in the USA had a great match with Fritz Raijmakers, the #2 seed, but fell 75 in the third. Pam Schulz and Julie David won their doubles 60 60.
Tonight was the player dinner. The food was fabulous…everything from shrimp to octopus to chocolate cake, dozens of cheeses, fish and steak and pork, pasta and pizza, sushi, fruit, salads galore…and a mariachi band roving around the dining room.