Nini (Luisa), Reinhilde and I arrived yesterday from Nuremberg via Munich by train just a few minutes late to Villach, Austria. The train from Munich to Villach was very crowded in all classes and there was a bit of confusion regarding seat reservations as they didn’t show up on the train (they are not mandatory). But I had a seat to myself and room to store my luggage and the scenery was beautiful.
Upon arrival we got an Uber to the address shown on the Sixt reservation but it turned out to be in the wrong city…so the Uber switched over to being a taxi and took us to the correct address (beware of this if you ever rent a car in Villach, Austria, from Sixt…it could happen!). The Sixt location was close to our apartment, and we put our stuff away, changed and went to meet Reinhilde and Vicki Buholz…I hit with Vicki and Nini with Reinhilde. We had a good amount of time and Vicki is hitting amazingly well…I crashed after a little over an hour…between a short night’s sleep, a long train ride and 8 hours of tennis over the weekend, I was a bit tired. Nini and I went to a Billa grocery store, which turned out to be next to a Hofer (the name of Aldi Sud in Austria…Aldi was already taken by the time Aldi put stores into Austria). It wasn’t a great Aldi…though quite large, nor a great Billa (though if you wanted chocolate, this was the place to go!), but we found what we needed to eat and drink.
Today Nini walked the 1.8 kilometers (just over a mile) to the Sportpark Warmbad-Villach to practice at 7:30 this morning; I arrived at 9am to hit with Nini and got in a good 40 minute warmup before my 11:30 match. I am playing 65 singles and 60 doubles (or whatever age division makes a draw). Our division has only 5 players so we play a round robin; in the 60s, there are 6 players, so there are 2 groups of 3 players each of which plays a round robin with the winner of each group to play the final. Nini and Vicki unfortunately are in the same Group A. MJ Pachl, Catherine Morgan and Ellen Neumann (from Germany, the #2 seed) are in Group B. So half of the draw is American! This is an ITF MT 700…same level as National Grass and Indoors but more like a Level 2.
I played Shirley Friedl from Austria, my doubles partner from last year. She is a lefty and played really well…mixed up her shots, came into net some, and ran down almost all my drop shots. I won 63 60. We had a very long last game in the first set…Shirley got two dead net cords in that game (when she hit the top of the net in the subsequent game, I said I was surprised it didn’t go over…she responded quickly that if it had she would have had a hat trick!). I am in the “don’t apologize for hitting a net cord or line” camp. Though I will acknowledge luck.
I saw a couple of other Americans here today, Bruce Barrett M75, Bob Anderman M85 (he won today), and Danny Shaw (though he lives in Vienna).
Tomorrow it is very likely to rain…hopefully it will hold off till midday since I play at 9:30, against Sylvia Reigl…we had to play indoors last year in Austria and it was a long and tough match against the Austrian lefty.
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