High life
Totally defeated
Taki
Gstaad The Black Forest lies in the highest plateau of Germany, shaped like a giant raindrop, its western edge forming a steep precipice above the Rhine valley, the east- ern side sloping gently down towards the Baar, which separates it from Rommel (Swabian) country.
The area got its name from the fearsome mountains with their forests that look black from a distance, but are in fact friendly, green and with 15,000 miles of marked footpaths, making the Black Forest a hik- ing area which can vie with any other region in Europe. Not that I did much hik- ing. Germans may once have been fear- some as warriors, but are now fearsome as fitness fanatics, especially in the senior ten- nis circuit. Never have I seen so many old people run so hard for so long after a ten- nis ball. But I'll come to that later.
I left Gstaad in the afternoon, driving to Basel to pick up my doubles partner, Nicky Kalogeropulos, who was flying in from Athens. We lost one hour while Nicky (who is used to the simpler life of Central America) asked a Swiss shuttle-bus driver to point the way to the tennis club of Hin- terzarten and the Swiss tried to work out where in Basel the Hinterzarten tennisplatz lay. At last we crossed the border into Ger- many and drove like hell towards Freiburg, once described as a 'magnificent garden' by Louis xiv. After Freiburg it was all curves and we came into Hinterzarten, once a remote village above the valley, now a famous health resort — hungry and in ter- rible need of a drink.
Hinterzarten extends along the banks of the Titisee, a beautiful lake of pleasure steamers, small boats and a pre-war atmo- sphere. The trouble was women. There were none under the age of 65 except for one waitress whom we met on our last night, and this in an area 100 miles long and roughly 40 miles wide. Although I say so myself, I'm rather quick in sussing out situations, and this was the worst I've seen in over 40 years of chasing girls under the pretence of playing tennis tournaments. Nicky, used to the languid pace of Latin life, did not catch on until much later, so he happily drank away and predicted that by the end of the tournament we would have screwed ourselves silly.
Needless to say, the only screwing that took place was on the tennis court. Nicky, who is 50, and holds wins over people like Tony Roche and Pancho Gonzales, chose to enter the 45s because there was a first prize of 4,000 DM. He got through one round and then went down in two very tight sets to a German who needed the moolah even more than he did. (Something to do with raising bail for his son, or so it seemed.) I played 55 and over in a field of 32, and in the round of 16 I found myself trailing 6-0, 4-0, and playing as well as I have in years. While towelling off at 4-1, I asked my opponent, Herbert Adam, if he was using illegal drugs, such was his energy and speed around the court. They say that German humour is no laughing matter and he sure did not laugh.
Still, I won the second 7-5, came back to lead the tie-break in the final set 5-1, only to lose the match 8-6. My opponent was as sporting as he was fit, and blamed my defeat on bad luck. It was nothing of the sort. The guy out-fought me and I wished him well as he took off on a 300-mile run to Baden- Baden and back. That night, defeated, out- fought, surrounded by old women, Nicky and I sought solace you know where and I'm still recovering As Yogi Berra wisely once said, it got late rather early in Hinterzarten.
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