Tennis Anyone?

This weeks walk was to be an evening one from Tai Seng, past Stadium and finishing at Satays by the Bay. Unfortunately the haze was in the very unhealthy range again so the walk was cancelled and instead most of us met up at SQUE bar for a drink, before meandering along to Wine Connections for dinner. It was only a short trip to the whisky shop and chocolate dessert shop before home.

On Tuesday Helen and I met up with Libby and Eric at the WTA Finals at the Indoor Stadium.  Our opening match was between the third ranked Chan sisters from Taipei and No.2 seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova. The final scoreline was 6-2, 6-2 in favour of the Chans and it was a very entertaining match with all players showing great hand speed at the net.

The 2nd match was between Flavia Pennetta (7), playing the last tour event of her professional career, who managed to beat Agnieszka Radwanska (5) in a close match after twice being a service break down. 

During the break we had a look at the practice court and saw Simona Halep warming up for her evening match against Maria Sharapova. We also checked the state of the haze and were very grateful that the play was in an air-conditioned stadium as I doubt the games would have gone ahead if it had to be played outdoors.

The evening session began with a legends doubles match with Martina Navratilova and Marion Bartoli against Tracy Austin and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in an 8-game pro set. It was very entertaining, as well as some pretty good tennis and the players actually looked like they were enjoying themselves.

Then Maria Sharapova (3) held off an inspired second set fightback to defeat Simona Halep (1) in a match which, for the first 45 minutes, was dead even on serve. She raced ahead in the second only for Halep to fight back. Really good tennis with amazing power.

The final match for the day was the Spanish pairing of Carla Suarez Navarro and Garbine Muguruza (8) against Caroline Garcia and Katarina Srebotnik (5). The Spanish pair got off to a fairly sluggish start and were actually down 5-1 before fighting back and being the eventual winners. By the time this game ended it was 11.50 and Helen and I bolted for the MRT, just making the last train to Serangoon, where we connected with the last train to Hougang, then the last bus home...phew!
As the final of the Rugby World Cup was between NZ and Australia there was a bit of discussion in the Lady Cave about the likely result. When an All Blacks supporter had her her toenails done to show where her allegiance lay I felt it only fitting to join in...perhaps the wearing of shoes too soon should have served as an omen when the 'paint'job became a little scrunched!

We had a PD session at Bishan on Thursday, and also received news from Lawrence that our landlords are prepared to reduce the rent to what we were asking so I don't have to relocate. Pip came over after work on Saturday to see how smoothly a weekend run goes and seemed quite happy with it.