World Championships: The End; Barker Wins EIGHTH! Singles Title & Wright Wins 7th Doubles Title in Portugal

Somewhere between Lisbon & Barcelona

Saturday August 17, 2019

The World Championships ended in Portugal today. They were a great success. This is a partial overview of the final day; I’m on an airplane en route to Barcelona…no internet. All matches described were finals.

60s:

Diane Barker played a near perfect match to beat Susan Wright 62 63 and win the 60 singles.

Robin Harris and Ross Persons lost to Ros Balodis/Peter Hampton in 60 mixed. Ros and Peter played an excellent match.

Mark Vines and Glenn Busby fell in the doubles final in a match tiebreak 10-8 to Aussies Peter Hampton & Michael Ford, and Glenn won the singles in men’s 60s.

Wright/Pat Medrado beat us in the women’s doubles final 63 75; we nearly mounted a successful comeback in the second set because we were down 40 and just trying to get a game…we got more aggressive, I served and volleyed and came into net all the time (Robin already does that) and it changed things. Susan was a rock, didn’t really miss a ball all day and Medrado was also solid and mixed things up. It was again extremely windy…we were both covered in red dirt by the end of the two hour match.

55s:

Klartje Van Baarle won the 55 singles, dismantling yet another opponent with the loss of only four games (Marie from France). She added the 55 doubles with Mary Dailey,
USA, 63 76 over Fran Chandler/Shelly Works.

Brenda Foster and Berend Betz won the 55 mixed. I don’t know who won the men’s singles but I believe he was from Germany. The 55 men’s doubles was ongoing when we left, with Polo Cowan/Dan Grossman (USA) winning the first set 76. UPDATE: They won 76 75, so Grossman has a 55 doubles world title to add to the 65s world title he won two years ago in Orlando.

50s: Taras Beyko won the 50 singles, his second world title. He’s a Canadian. Theresa Catlin from GBR won her first singles world championship. Later in the day she won the doubles too with Siobhan Nicholson over former world champions Lesley O’Halloran/Olga Shaposhnikova.

The day was hectic; it started with getting all of our luggage out of the apartment and to the club via Uber. We had a super nice Uber driver who went out of his way to get our stuff close to the office where we stored our luggage for the day. Jenny Cerff and Susan Wright went earlier because Susan had to play her singles. Then Susan played singles, Robin played mixed and Susan and Pat played Robin and me. As soon as we finished, realizing it was 5pm, we showered and then had photos taken and booked out of there via Uber.

Jenny’s Phone Update: Jenny got the Portuguese tennis federation and Uber involved in retrieving her phone from Gabriela, the Uber driver who had it. She was to return it to the tennis club but in the end Jenny’s friend from So Africa who lives in Portugal had to go to her apartment and retrieve it. Jenny does now have her phone and is not letting go! She was politely persistent and it paid off.

We arrive in Barcelona sometime around midnight (plane delay currently).

And that’s a wrap on the 2019 ITF Seniors World Championships. I’ll update this with final results soon.