Day 4–6: Oct 13–15 – Super Senior World Team Championships
Club Ali Bey Manavagat, Turkey
The rains finally stopped and the last 3 days have been spectacular
—74 during the day with bright blue skies. Starting from the last day, the Queens Cup won the World Championship – the Gold Medal- without the loss of a set. I played all the doubles and the other 3 players Dorothy Mattheissen from Pasadena, CA, Dori Devries from Reno, NV and Burnette Herrrick from Tarboro NC, mixed it up in the singles. In order, we played France, South Africa, Germany and in the final Great Britain. Not only was our team successful but seven of our ten US cups teams were gold medalists! I believe that may be a record. Last year we came away with six Championships. It is quite a thrill to win a World Championship!
The organizers here do a very good job. Every medal match has a chair umpire and all matches have “assistants” assigned to each court in case the players need something. However, they don’t provide forehands or backhands even when you are in need. The President of the Turkish Tennis Federation, Ayda Uluc, has been here every year for part of the week. I have a chat with Ayda each year when I have been here. I recognized early on that her English was excellent- she went to high school in Montgomery County while her father was attached to the Turkish Embassy. She is part Mid-Atlantic!
We have had some spare time for shopping and sightseeing. One of my favorite towns to visit is Sede about 25 minutes from Alibey. There are lots of stores selling “knockoffs” (watches, leather goods and sport clothes). But if interested you can buy all kinds of spices and teas- including Viagra tea. Tea is the Turkish national drink, not the well known Turkish coffee. Turkish rugs are everywhere and are well made and beautiful but looking comes with sales people who often follow you down the street. Sede, aside from the shopping, has many interesting ruins dating back to the Romans including an amphitheater, remains of an Apollo Temple and acres of other ruins. Every year when I return they have done more excavations. Turkey is a fascinating country. ` Just 2 miles from here is a 20,000 seat Roman amphitheater in which, until 2 years ago, live concerts were held. And just driving down the main highway to Alibey the country side is dotted with small ancient ruins.
That’s it for the team event. On Monday the Individual Super Senior World Championships start with over 400 players.
You can follow all the results on itftennis.com.
All our 10 US teams are still rolling along- in fact no team lost an individual match. The format is two singles and one double. Our team, the Queens Cup, played a very strong French team in our first round who unfortunately were not seeded. I actually spoke up at the captains meeting about the French but the French captain spoke very little English and was essentially clueless when we discussed seeds. (All the captains meetings run by the ITF are held in English) It always amazes me how many Europeans speak English well and how few Americans speak any other language. Anyhow we managed not to lose a set but came close to it in all three of our matches. I played the doubles which we won 6-1 7-5 after being down 4-1 in the second.
Tomorrow we play South Africa who lost easily to the French yesterday.Although the tennis courts are within walking distance of our accommodations it takes an incredible 8 minutes to walk from the first court to the one furthest from the central plaza. And looking for matches or your own match court is a time consuming job with 62 courts to check out. They are lettered and numbered but the “charting” is rather strange. It is pretty hard even with all these courts to get practice time.. they were full today with matches until dusk and because there are round robin formats and not single elimination formats there are almost as many matches near the end of the event as the beginning. So when we can’t practice we eat and socialize.
Will be back tomorrow.