Tennis Archives - Northern California Style

Just a quick post to share all the stylish ladies I saw today at the annual Bank of the West Classic Ladies Day. This lunch is held on two days and includes lunch, meeting one of the players, a raffle for prizes, swag bags and most importantly tennis! Many of the attendees are from tennis clubs far and wide that organize this and gather tables. Today we saw two matches and the weather was wonderful for July.

One surprise today was seeing Venus Williams! She plays tonight and popped by to say hi to all the ladies and talk a little about her tennis line, Eleven.

We got a preview and it’s lovely and all made in America. The company is owned and run by women and Venus designs it all. I bought a jacket in the pink print which has the cutest peplum back vents.

As I’ve said before Venus is such a supporter of women and women’s causes and a gracious sweet lady. Super cool to see her in person!

We also got to meet Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia. This little gal is world number 12 and just got to the quarter finals of Wimbledon!

One darling lady at the lunch was married 70 years (age 90!) and was asked to come up and give advice as she just got married the weekend after Wimbledon.

I had my friend and tennis buddy Jeanne with me.

Starmont Wines sponsoring the event again. I adore the Schlatter family who own Starmont and sister winery, Merryvale.

It was a nice surprise to see Laurence was working the Starmont kiosk that day. She is always a wonderful ambassador for her winery. She looked great in aqua accented with a tennis necklace. Laurence and her whole family are serious tennis players, so they could not be more perfect to sponsor of this event!

Make sure you try a glass if you are at the stadium. Their chardonnay is my favorite.

Here’s a few more of the unique looks spotted today…

White linen paired with a black hat!

Many opted for just a shirtdress and hat. That and cute sandals are all one needed to stay cool and look put together. This one below from Macys is on sale too and would be a nice option for those hot days.

A lot of ladies wore short skirts or shorts as it’s very warm watching in this stadium. Love the orange here and white…with a metallic bag.

These ladies came from Modesto and were also working the shirtdress trend and apparently the white dress was $12 from the Gap! I think it looked so chic. Loved the hats too.

Printed skirts were popular and cute athletic tops like this lavender one were a good choice to stay cool.
We all got gourmet popsicles too!

Some of the ladies from our table caught Venus by the Eleven kiosk and got a photo with her! She’s very tall 6’1!

The organizer of our Decathlon table, Mitzi with Jeanne in linen lavender and a cool cotton hat. Decathlon was nice to let me sit with them as I am no longer playing with them, but they grandfathered me in I think. Lol.

Stripes and navy just say summer! The lady on the right said her look was all J Crew. I thought both looked fresh.

I like the pewter sandals and LV bag Jeanne wore. Pewter just works so well for summer and with her Trina Turk blouse and cute Athleta shorts with side zips. I need these shorts that look dressy, but are in a sporty and cool material! We both had hats from The Montecristi Panama Hat Company we got in Yountville. I had a Panama and Jeanne had a wide brim sunhat.

This cute boy was the guest of his grandma who was rocking her sundress!

So many cute hats!

Thanks ladies showing how to look stylish and stay cool in the heat!

Kim

The refresh button was hit at the U.S. Open this week and I loved it. How nice it was to see some new faces and a few Cinderella stories come true. Roberta Vinci and Flavia Pennetta, were examples of grace in sports as the surprise ladies’ final singles players, ranked 43rd and 26th in the world they beat the odds and won hearts.

Both women grew up in Puglia, Italy not far from each other, and were roommates in Rome as young teenagers working on their tennis. Sixteen years ago they won the French Open ladies doubles title…

Isn’t this the best?

Professional tennis has become a game of the strong and the mighty and when the same sort of matches are played and replayed, we don’t see what or who we are missing or that another kind of tennis can be possible. Roberta and Flavia showed us a sort of tennis that is rarely seen in these grand slam finals anymore.

These women, who have played doubles forever, have a game of finesse, strategy and amazing ability at the net. You cannot develop those skills if you only ever play singles. Today’s stars are so much about baseline power shots and record breaking serve speed, it is rare to see even someone like Serena engage the net.

That was one reason the tiny charmer Vinci, who especially has this skill along with surprise shots, won her semi-final match against Serena. She played like a seasoned doubles player, mixing it up, coming to the net and Serena couldn’t play her game of power when delivered such shots. It makes you wonder what really is good tennis? Just look back to some of the matches of Borg and Chris Evert and others of that era to see strategy, not the reliance on power as it dominates today’s tennis.

As much as I like Serena, I was elated to see the charming Italians play together. These girls, in their 30s, have decades of tennis behind them and Flavia 33, the U.S. Open winner, became the oldest player to ever win a grand slam tournament in the open era (since 1968.) How awesome is it to see someone with experience, years of slogging through tournaments, finally realize a dream decades later when she probably thought it was too late for it ever to happen? I also loved that they sat together, and were truly happy for each other. So different from the usual attitudes seen after big match losses.

Unbelievably, Flavia had decided to retire after this tournament a few weeks before and announced her intentions when she accepted her trophy. What a way to go out. She was asked if she might change her mind and what were her plans. She answered she didn’t know what she was going to do. Because her whole life had been tennis since childhood, she was quitting to find out what she liked to do as she never had time to know anything but tennis. Wow. Inspiring story. It’s never too late to realize your dream and quitting to find yourself is brave as well.