Today started early…as dawn broke…with a 7am warm up with Ellen Neumann from Germany, who is playing in the W65s. We had an excellent warm up…Ellen does not miss and hits a great ball, though I had a bit of difficulty seeing the ball at first, it was overcast and sunrise is only at 6:58 am (though sunset is at 8pm).
After warm up I went back to my apartment and eventually went to the grocery store to get some strawberries and vegetables (they were out of most things last night). Alassio is in Liguria region of Italy (as is Cinque Terre), known for pesto, focaccia, olive oil, borage ravioli, local seafood, and Baci di Alassio, a hazelnut chocolate cookie. (Borage is an annual herb, also known as a starflower and has a flavor reminiscent of cucumber.) All sound good to me except the borage.
I had a singles match second after 11:30. I arrived around 11:30 at the Hanbury Tennis Club, which has a small clubhouse/restaurant chock full of tennis memorabilia (which extends to the second floor where the small locker rooms are located. The restaurant does a brisk business at least during the tournament, turning out pasta dishes, focaccia and more along with the requisite (to Italians anyway) coffee. It was pretty cold and I had forgotten warm up pants so I went back and picked them up, lucky I am only 8 minutes away (not mostly flat though…down a hill from the Club).
I finally got on court around 1:30 or so and won my match against Eugenia, a nice woman from Spain. I had time so I got a massage after…the tournament has a masseuse on site, a nice feature of a masters 700 tournament, as well as a stringer (14 euro if you have your own strings), and a small pro shop. I checked in and paid (before my match) and received a t-shirt, coffee and a beer (which I respectfully declined).
After returning to my apartment to drop off my racquet bag, I walked into Alassio, picked up a chicken for a Costco-like price of under 6 euro, and walked towards the sea. It’s Easter Monday, a holiday in much of Europe, and the shopping street (which admittedly is narrow) was packed, as was the pier. The sun came out and I wandered around for an hour or so.
Tomorrow I play…sometime, it’s 7pm and the order of play is not yet out, which is to be expected, but I am warming up at 7am again.