On Thursday we played the semis of the mixed at 10am as we were told we would on Wednesday. We won 9-4 against Haim Ohm and Julia Dudics. Julia's game didn't translate as well to doubles as it does to singles, though Haim has a big lefty serve.

However, the final was not scheduled immediately afterwards but was to be played after the 40s women's final (which began at 10) and then the mixed semi were played. We couldn't wait around all day to play (trains and planes to catch), so ended up second.

I went by car with Bridget to Villach in Austria, through Croatia and Slovenia. Villach is near Klagenfurt. Then after lunch in a Biergarten (you walk into what looks like a bar or dark restaurant into a huge garden in the back, bordered by a church and a beer brewery), I caught a train to Vienna. Friday I toured a castle outside Vienna, and also the old town. It was quite warm, in the low 90s and I saw a lot of red faces. Interesting fact...you can pick out Germans because they wear socks with their sandals. I saw a lot of that and also heard a lot of Americans for a change.

The weather changed completely today, well last night. It rained and the temperature cooled off to the low 60s. The afternoon was mostly dry, a few sprinkles from time to time. I saw a lot of beautiful old buildings, the museum, palace, Ratthaus (where a film festival was taking place that evening...a huge screen was juxtapositioned onto the old building), churches and the Spanish Riding School. Then I did a bit of shopping on Mariahilferstrasse...wandered into a big department store and was surprised to see T-shirts not only with Florida and Miami on them, but several with "Pensacola Beach" logos.

Back to the USA tomorrow.

Minimal (ie normal for Croatia) confusion today...I was scheduled for noon but the schedule was changed when I arrived to 1:30, so we watched the 55 final...one woman from Hungary, Julia Dudics, played the top seed from Austria, Dagmar S. Dudics hit the ball the 1st set and lost so the 2nd set she reverted to hitting every ball straight up in the air...in the end it wore out her opponent, but it was an interesting match, the Hungarian poker faced and the Austrian talking to her friends between every point...Hungary won in the end. Then she had 3 cigarettes according to Bridget, after the match and was chain smoking like crazy before the final!

I won my final, beating the 2 time defending champion from Austria 60 60...Anita Hagner. The prize was 6 days room and board for the tournament next year. We are also in the mixed semis, got a default in the round of 16 and won the quarters over a Serbian pair 92. I think we will play one or 2 matches tomorrow...our semifinal opponents indicated they might not play. Then on to Vienna.

The weather was fantastic again today and the referee mellower as the tournament winds down.

There were chairs for the final...they called all the lines but not any foot faults, the head referee said it was too hard to do that for seniors who had been foot faulting for 40 years and the foot faults didn't gain them any advantage anyway, and only a few matches are umpired so changing the rules for the final wouldn't work..then he described some of the blatant foot faults he'd observed during the tournament. It's definitely a more mellow type of tournament, the bar gets a workout here for sure.

The confusion abated this afternoon, we played our mixed...only an hour behind schedule. There's only one age division for mixed, so we played a team from the 60s and won 9-0...we are playing pro sets in the mixed obviously. We probably play 2 or 3 rounds tomorrow but after the singles final which is scheduled for noon. There are lots of nice people at this tournament...the players here anyway are not in deep training...they are playing, then having a beer at lunch and a smoke afterwards!

We had the Gala Dinner last night, a nice buffet dinner, preceded by champagne and Schnapps..wine on the tables, but we had to request water. It started at about 8 for cocktails, 8:30 for dinner...dancing was starting about 10 when we left, as I needed to find out when I played and nothing was posted at the dinner, though a schedule was promised. The schedule was posted at the Club where a men's 70s match had just concluded at 10pm, and the referee was still on site. I was scheduled for 9am at the top club, the one with a great view.

Today we were driven up the mountain only to find out that the tournament had failed to reserve those courts (which were fully scheduled for matches today)...back down the mountain to the main club in Opatija, where we were fit in at about 3pm...however there were 2 courts free at 9:30...I asked the referee...can we play now, we are here, no one is on the courts. He agreed and so we played and I beat a Serbian player 60 60...nice lady, only has been playing tennis for 6 years, but a decent player, good athlete and a former basketball player.

Our mixed was also scheduled for up on the mountain...now it's scheduled not before 5pm...probably will be closer to dusk (7:30 or so) I think...one 10am match was just starting at noon. The loss of 2 of 9 courts is bound to put them behind schedule.

Very sunny and warm here today and the Adriatic is sparkling. It is a very relaxed atmosphere other than the fact that the tournament is being run in an incoherent fashion! Apparently one woman took vacation this year during the tournament and it's thrown things off.

All for now.

The nicest thing about this tournament is that we have had no problem finding practice courts. The tournament arranged for the players to have use of the courts at Hotel Opatija, about a 10 min walk from the club. The other nice thing is the great location on the Adriatic, with wonderful, sunny weather.

The organization is the worst of any tournament I have played. We spoke with one guy from Israel who came to Croatia just to play the tournament. The club’s web page had only information from 2008 on the home page…no dates or entry or information on the 2009 tournament was posted. The 2008 dates were the 24-29 of August, which this year would be a Mon-Sat…reasonable to expect those to be the 2009 dates. This gentleman called the club many times and emailed he said about a half dozen times, trying to clarify the dates so he could fly here….never received a response as to the tournament’s starting date, so he arranged his flights to arrive on the 23^rd…only to be told that the tournament started on the 22^nd and he was not entered…after flying from Israel to Slovenia via Istanbul and renting a car to come here! He is ending up playing doubles, mixed and consolation singles…

There’s no tournament desk to check in…today I was told to go to court 2 to play my match, we warmed up, were almost done when it turned out I was warming up with the wrong person! I was warming up with Bridget’s opponent and my opponent was waiting on court 4. I won 60 60 against a Slovenian player and Bridget lost 63 63 to a Croatian player. I haven’t figured out who the TD is…there seems to be a referee, who is also running the tournament, let’s just say he’s not a people person.

I’m going to play mixed with an American guy who is from NM, Barker, probably tomorrow; we are in the round of 32, so hopefully there will be 2 matches tomorrow.

Tonight there is the Gala Dinner at the Ambassador Hotel, which should be nice, I hope.

Despite the running of the tournament it’s very nice here, the location makes it nice, the promenade along the sea is great, weather is great, and the food around here has been good, lots of Italian and seafood restaurants and tons of ice cream shops.

The women's events started today. The organization here is different for sure. None of the women were allowed to sign in till today after 9am. (There were specific times for the men in various age divisions to sign in too, some yesterday and the older men's divisions today at 10, 11 and 2). So we lined up European style (lots of cutting the line...Bridget and I ended up in the back of the line, but no worries, we had a long time yet to wait). So we got to the sign up area, paid our entry..60 Euros (no entries were paid in advance by anyone).  We noticed that at 9am there were 4 matches scheduled at the Opatija club, but only one match was on court...at 9:30 two matches were on the court...and 2 courts empty till 10. We had to wait around...till noon...before the draws were made and finally posted.We couldn't leave because matches were scheduled for today, but couldn't be scheduled till the draws were made. Bridget was finally scheduled for 11:30 today (not before 11:30) actually. We immediately had to go to a different site...no time for lunch. The courts were about 1000 feet up the hill behind Opatija, very curvy roads. We stopped at one set of courts way up a hill..not the ones Bridget would play on, but someone else in the van played there. Everyone got out and Bridget and her opponent had time for a sandwich...very leisurely ride. Then we went off to another set of courts and it was windy, but when we got there the view was spectacular. I will try to post photos tomorrow. I asked Bridget if the view was distracting when she played. Her court had no backdrop on the sea side and the view was of the cobalt blue Adriatic and the islands off the Croatian coast...unbelievable location.  She said it was distracting, as the view was no beautiful. It was a great vantage point for watching tennis and taking photos, low key. Bridget won 64 62 against a Croatian player who lives in Munich, so they communicated in German. Back to the courts...we were told to wait till after 7pm to get our times for tomorrow. 7pm at the courts...no schedule and none would be posted according to the referee online. We talked to the referee and did get an approximate starting time from him finally. The bar at the club is doing great business with everyone waiting around, but it's a nice place to wait.

I didn't play today, smaller draw, only 8, one player, Julia Smutny, dropped out. It was cooler and clearer today. I took photos of the draws too and will post later when I am on my computer.

This is a real tourist hot spot...but not for Americans, though it's a very nice area.

Hello from Opatija, Croatia. I am here for the 45th International Tennis Seniors Championships of Croatia. (Click here for more on this tournament.) Yesterday we drove from Grobming, Austria to Opatija, about 6 hours at a leisurely pace...through Austria, past Salzburg, then through Slovenia for a long time till we crossed over the border to Croatia (2 stamps on the passport). Opatija is near Rijeka, in the northern part of Croatia. It's a beachside resort and was the "Austrian Riviera" during the rule of the Hapsburgs in the 19th century and many old baroque style buildings remain, most of which are hotels now.

We practiced today...twice..and it was warm after Austria and Germany, nearly 90, there was a passing thunderstorm which didn't pan out to much rain here, just a few sprinkles. There is lots of walking here, the courts are up a hill from my hotel and the practice courts are a hike as well, but overall the area is pretty contained.

The check in time for the tournament is 9am tomorrow and no draws will be done till after everyone has signed up and paid up...there are supposed to be 9 players in the 50s and 11 in the 55s.

I've posted a few photos over at Picassa, click here to see them.

I finished the Bad Breisig tournament today. I won the singles over local favorite (and the defending champion), Margret Beyer 64 60. It was much warmer today (mid-80s) and breezy, actually a good wind out of the south, and it made it difficult to play on one side with the sun and wind in our faces. I managed it a little better than Margret in the first set, after losing the first 2 games anyway, and came in to net a lot more than she did on the downwind side, and in the second set came to net from both ends....probably more than I did in the doubles, which we lost to Blom and Simons, who were more balanced and consistent than we were. It was a good match anyway. Nora cruised to the singles win even though she was the #2 seed and the person she played in the final, Schweda, had beaten the #1 seed 62 61!

For doubles both days we only got used balls, since according the referee the ITF sanction & the ITF rules do not apply to doubles, since the ITF does not give ranking points for doubles. (Therefore none of the ITF clothing rules apply to doubles either I presume). There's no separate entry fee here for doubles either, one fee covers both. The prizes differ too...for singles 300 Euros & flowers, for doubles, wine and flowers. I was able to give flowers to the two women who ran the desk all week.

Overall this is a nice tournament, 2 dinners and a nice site, but just not enough courts. Today they were running on time for our matches.

After the tournament ended I finally had a chance to walk down to the waterfront in Bad Breisig (a small area with a lot of restaurants overlooking the Rhein and walk along the Rhein for an hour, very pleasant, and I saw a castle in Bad Honnigen. I'll be posting photos on Picassa soon.

Tomorrow I'm off to Salzburg for a day and hope to leave very early so I don't run into bad traffic...

I was able today to play on clay, outdoors and it didn't rain today. Tomorrow should be nice.

I won my singles easily, and am in the final against Margret Beyer, who is from here and who beat the #2 seed, Annelies Simons 62 62 today. Margret is very tough. We are scheduled for 11:30, but they always seem to be behind schedule here, as matches go longer than the 1 hour 20 min allotted to most of them.

I met my doubles partner, Irene Smutny, and we won our doubles tonight. We started very late, it was nearly 8pm. One of our opponents had a 5pm singles match which was started late. Then she was up 62 50...and lost the set 75, though she finally won the match in the third set 63. She was very tired afterwards. After a 20 min break, during which my partner and I warmed up a bit...with the match balls which were used balls, no new balls here for doubles. The used balls are also available for purchase at 1 euro per ball ($1.40 a ball...a new can of 4 balls costs about 14 Euros or nearly $20). When our opponents came out we started the match...no warm up serves even. We play the final against Nora Blom and Simons at 2:30,though since Nora has a 2pm final it might be later.

That's all for tonight, another update tomorrow night then I'm off to Austria.

I ended up in a rain delay...followed by going indoors to play my match in the Tennis Halle. The surface is a soft carpet. This one wasn't too slippery, but was slow for a carpet, spongy almost. The Halle had a green carpet...I meant to take a photo, and the outside wall, like many Halles in Germany and Austria had a lot of light coming in. By the time we finished (I won 60 63), the sun had come out and all the clay courts were pretty dry. Tomorrow's forecast looks fine.

It's a long day today and I haven't even played yet! I was to play, according to the first match schedule posted online, at 10:20 am today. I got up, ran around a bit and drove over to the courts (about 20 min.) only to be told that my time had been changed to 18:20 (6:20 pm...and there are no lighted courts outside). So...I spoke with the referee who said he'd changed that time a long time ago and I was supposed to be told of the change when I checked in, but I wasn't. I even checked my time about 9pm last night and there was no change posted, and no schedule for today posted either, apparently it wasn't posted till 9am (play starts at 9) today for today's matches. I play a doctor so I suspect she had to work and that's why my time was changed. I also found out why the draws aren't posted before play begins. Apparently a lot of players in Germany, if they see the draw and it's not a good one just don't show up, so their solution is to not post them till after the first round has been played. I guess there are so many tournaments in Germany, that if one draw doesn't work out another one will.

The referee also said that there was a big increase in the number of entrants this year, as this tournament no longer conflicts with the one I played last week. So the tournament organizers were unprepared and there weren't enough courts for the tournament, it explains why it's impossible to practice...though play only begins at 9am, it could begin earlier, it's light at 6...but 9 is considered very early here.

It rained like crazy last night, but the courts were dry by 8 am or so, and I'm hoping the rain holds off till after my match. The woman at the desk said that play didn't finish last night till midnight, due to the rain (they went indoors onto carpet to finish).

Today I successfully navigated the trip to the courts...so far have not been lost...today. I hit in the morning early, 7:30 for an hour with Nora Blom from the 55s. She's a lefty, won the tournament in Rottach over Tomanova handily and an excellent clay court player. The conditions here are much heavier than they were in Rottach and the area behind the courts is much larger. Dropshots are going to be a factor and drop volleys, and hitting high loopy balls will be more difficult I think. The courts are also quite slippery under a thick clay topping. The courts are nice though and so is the club. They gave everyone in the draw a tennis shirt and put the logo from the club on it (ironically, the logo size far exceeds the ITF specifications in size, more like 4 x 4 inches). The clothing is from a company called topspin tennis, I like that. They are also hosting an informal dinner tonight, bratwurst I think and a more formal one on Thursday night at a hotel, both free to the players. They do seem very organized here, but don't have enough courts, they didn't finish all matches last night before dark and there are no courts for practice after about 8:45 and even those are difficult to secure, though there are other sites in the area.

I walked around Bad Neuenahr yesterday, it's a pretty town and I'm going to Ahrweiler this afternoon and also by the tennis courts here to check things out. I hope to post photos later.

I am now in Bad Neuenahr Germany, which is near Cologne. Yesterday was interesting, I took a train and a bus and a shuttle to get my rental car and drove from Munich to Bad Neuenahr. Los Angeles and Houston have nothing on Germany as far as traffic jams are concerned...I ended up in a three hour crawl...no accidents, just road construction I think and Sunday evening traffic going back home. Interestingly I only saw a few cars with fewer than 2 people in them, most had 2 and many had families or groups of 4 or more. A four hour drive ended up taking 8 and I arrived very late here, but in one piece. There are lots of rest stops along the freeway with gas stations and restaurants and other stops that just have places to park and stretch. The adventure today will be to find the club in Bad Breisig, but since I passed the turnoff last night and the club is across from the rail station (as is my hotel here...could have just taken the train...next time). I don't play till Thursday and since the tournament uses ITF rankings to seed, will likely be the top seed. I'm going to try and practice today with a Dutch player.

There is one other American in the men's draw, but pretty much everyone here is German with a few Dutch, Austrian and Belgian players sprinkled in.

Here's a link to the draws, though they haven't been posted yet for the younger divisions. I don't know why. Then you click on  "Ergebnisliste"  on the lower right side of the page to see the draws.
 

The German Open finished for us today, I won the 50 singles and doubles. It's funny, over here I'm considered a doubles expert! I beat my doubles partner, Gundi Wieland 62 61, we had good points, but the courts here don't have a lot of room behind them and I kept her in the back fence a lot, and won points at net. Then we won the doubles 62 61, had some good points, but we were more consistent.

Debbie Hobbs from Tampa won the 55 consolation over Bridget Harrer who is from everywhere...So Africa, Austria and the US, 75 63, then they played their doubles, combined 45/55 and played the woman who won the 40 singles...they had good points but didn't win.

In sort of an upset, Renata Tomanova lost to Nora Blom 62 21 ret, a toe injury of some sort.

It was a really nice day today. A few clouds but no rain after Tuesday morning, we were lucky. Tomorrow I'm off to Bad Breisig, near Cologne, for the next tournament. I was told today though that there's no play till Thursday for the 50s as there are only 8 entrants, which is a bummer. But it's a nice area, the Rhine Valley.

It's late here so this will be brief.

I beat the 3rd seed, Annalies Simons from Netherlands 60 60. We had good points and I was just able to get the last one in all the games. I play my doubles partner, Weiland in the final. She beat Schulz 63 61, and Schulz is a good player, I'll have my hands full tomorrow. We play Schultz in the doubles, she and her partner upset the top seeds, Nora Blom/Simons 76 64 by coming to the net off serves and returns. They were losing staying back and changed tactics very successfully.

Bridget Harrer and Debbie Hobbs both won their 55 consolation matches and are in the final. They also talked to the referee, we saw him today and he agreed to have a doubles, combining the 55s with the 45s, so they also have doubles tomorrow. That's good news.

Really nice day today but tomorrow won't be as good, hopefully it will stay dry.

Gundula and I won our doubles match 60 61, our opponents were very excited to win that game. We played my first round singles opponent and another German woman. Doubles is very loosely organized. No one was wearing matching outfits. There are 5 teams in the 50s but no other doubles...there were 4 teams in the 55s and they unfortunately didn't combine the age divisions or offer those ladies a spot in mixed, they just canceled the doubles without contacting them.There were 4 teams in the 55s so they could still have started it tomorrow...the 50s had only 5 teams, or combined them, but they apparently removed the sign up sheet and it's too late  now to do anything. It's really too bad, Debbie Hobbs came a long way from the US to play this event, hard to attract overseas foreigners here who like doubles, the doubles draws are mostly an afterthought. There is one entry fee here for singles and either doubles or mixed. There are no ranking points or prize money for doubles, and since the tournament does not get extra money from doubles entry fees, canceling it only saves on tennis balls and court time. The ironic thing is that they chose this tournament to play over Klosters, which was not offering doubles this year and now wish they'd gone there, as it's well organized.

We played doubles at a different club today, but I was unaware of that till I checked in...didn't even know there was another venue and one needed a car to get there...which I don't have. Fortunately my doubles partner came back to pick me up. The other venue was in a more rural setting, really at the base of a ski mountain. It was very pretty there. We had one funny moment when we started to warm up and the sprinklers came on the adjacent court, getting our stuff wet. We moved it to the other side of the court just in time for the sprinklers to come on in our court...no one seemed concerned, other than us, so we ended up moving courts.

Debbie won her consolation match today and she and Bridget play consolation tomorrow morning.

I play the semis against Annalies Simons and have to warm up early...will post tomorrow.

It's another nice day in Bavaria today. I played Gaby Chop and she did sort of chop her backhand...used the same side of the racquet for volleys anyway as for forehands. I won 60 61 and actually hit 2 aces and several balls that bounced over her head into the backdrop, which considering how heavy the balls seem was surprising. She was quite nice and we had some good points. I play the #3 seed, Annalies Simons from the Netherlands tomorrow, she's the #1 ranked Dutch player in the 50s and a very good player. We have doubles this afternoon. There are 5 teams and we are playing my first round opponent and another German player at 4:30. Doubles and mixed is quite casual here.

Several seeds pulled out including the #1 seed in the 60s, Eisterlerner and the #2 seed in the 50s, Smutny and some players were questioning why a much lower seed (instead of the #3 seed for example) were put in their places in the draw. They liked the idea of putting a higher ranked player in the same spot so the draws don't get lopsided.

Hello from Rottach-Egern, Germany, in Bavaria, south of Munich about an hour by car or train.

This is an ITF Grade 1 tournament. No one is calling footfaults here, maybe the ITF allows them, but my opponent was 2 steps into the court today before she even hit the ball! Nonetheless I beat her, Renate Werner from Germany,  60 60. I play a very good player tomorrow, Gabriele Chop. The clay here is red and pretty slow and the balls are heavy duty Dunlop Fort Tournament balls, which the Dutch players thought were very light. I didn't notice any matching outfits in doubles. The seeding seems to have been done by an older ITF list since it's not by world ranking order, but I think the rankings were published after the draws were made. It's sort of confusing, but in Europe the ITF rankings often do a good job of sorting out players since everyone plays a lot of ITF tournaments.

This event has men and women 40-80 in the men and 40-75 in the women, singles and doubles and mixed, though they are going to probably combine some age divisions in the doubles. Bridget Harrer, who is South African but lives part of the time in Austria and Tampa and speaks German...found a doubles partner for me, Gundella Wieland, who is now the 5th seed in the singles, since Julia Smutny, the #2 seed, pulled out yesterday, and Gundula took her place in the draw, being the highest ranked unseeded player, and actually, after the current rankings came out, the 2nd highest ranked player in the draw overall. The 4th seed lost first round to Sabine Schmitz .  Bridget and her doubles partner from Tampa, Debbie Hobbs lost but are playing the consolation, Debbie tomorrow and Bridget on Friday, plus doubles.

It rained yesterday morning and Monday afternoon, but fortunately we hit before leaving Austria (Debbie and I visited Bridget in Austria before driving to Rottach), and were able to hit yesterday and today at another club. The weather today was beautiful, sunny, warm at midday but cool in the mornings and evenings. This location is on the Tegernsee; See means lake in German. We are staying just next to the courts in a nice hotel, Parkresidenz which is very convenient, no need to use the car much.

Tomorrow we are practicing early, at 8am before matches start at 9. I play at noon, and not sure about doubles, the draws aren't posted yet.
Here's a link to the website. The tournament draws are linked on the right, the 2nd tournament, the one that started on the 1st and ends on the 9th of August.

Photos will be posted soon, probably tomorrow.