Sept. 15, 2006
By Bo Rottenborn
The Notre Dame men’s tennis team closed out the summer of 2006 with a four-city, three-country tour of Europe from Aug. 8-20. The Irish visited Munich, Germany, then moved on to Salzburg and Vienna, Austria before closing out the trip in Dublin, Ireland. Six members of the team reconvened in South Bend on Mon., Aug. 7 and along with staff and escorts left for Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for the non-stop flight to Dublin, Ireland while three others would joined the group in Munich.
They arrived in Dublin, the home of senior Barry King at 8:00 a.m. on Aug. 9 (local time) and took advantage of an eight-hour layover to take a brief trip downtown for a preview of the final leg of their trip. The travel party left Dublin and flew on to Munich, arriving during the evening of Wed., Aug. 9. The team stayed in the capital of Bavaria for one day before taking a train southeast through the Black Forest to Salzburg, Austria, arriving on Friday, Aug. 11. After a brief stay in Salzburg, the Irish headed east to the nation’s capital, Vienna, on Saturday morning. Among the highlights of the stay in the hometown of Notre Dame senior Irackli Akhvlediani was a match against a very strong Austrian team on Sunday, Aug. 13.
After three days in Vienna, the group flew back to the Emerald Isle (Aug. 16) to spend the remainder of the trip in the capital of Ireland. There, the squad played grass court matches on Friday and Saturday and then took in an international friendly soccer match between Ireland and The Netherlands. The Dutch squad – which was ranked in the top 10 of the FIFA world rankings since 2002 – is currently ranked sixth in the world after being upset in the round of 16 of the World Cup earlier this summer. The Irish team did not qualify for the World Cup.
The Irish then returned to Chicago and the Notre Dame campus on Sunday, Aug. 20 to get ready for the start of classes on Tues., Aug. 22. Here’s a look at Notre Dame tennis’ “European Vacation” through the camera lenses of Bo Rottenborn, Brandon Pierpoint and Ramona Wilcox.