18 AMTA members and guests traveled first to St. Petersburg, Russia for a pre-trip July 7-10, arriving in Helsinki July 7 and taking the train the next day at 7am to St. Petersburg.

The sightseeing included the spectacular Hermitage Museum, St. Catherine's Palace in the countryside, St. Isaac's Cathedral, and a boat ride with guide along rivers and canals viewing the splendid architectural buildings. 4 of us took advantage of the option to see the Russian Ballet at the famous Marinsky Theater. Each day of sightseeing included lovely lunches together at local restaurants serving typical Russian food. At lunch on Thursday, we were entertained by Russian musicians and singer in Russian costume.

We were joined by 10 other AMTA travelers when we returned to Helsinki. Opening dinner was on Saturday, July 11 at the Hilton Kalastajatorppa (yep that is the correct spelling.) There were 300 physicians and guests registered representing 26 countries. The tennis tournament ran smoothly as Finland used our USTA software called "TDM" to organize and schedule the tournament. Kudos to our USTA for permitting WMTS to use this software for the price of $35.00, the price of joining USTA as an organization! The weather was exceptional except for 1 day of rain and we had the use of 24 indoor courts so the tournament stayed on schedule. At the Wednesday President's meeting, Lon Olsen stepped down as WMTS President and handed the gavel to Miroslav Ondrej from Slovakia, and Slovalia will be our next WMTS meeting, August 28-Sept. 4, 2010.

For the 1st time there was a trial Nation's Cup for women physicians. Germany won for the women physicians and Italy won for male physicians!