CHAMPIONS LEAGUE!!!

From the 6th until the 9th of September this year the European club team championshiph were held at the Hamr sports club in Prague housing around 10 squash courts, tenniscourts, beachvolleyball and a restaurant.

We were accommodated at a gigantic hotel that also housed the glasscourt with surrounding tribunes. The beds were worse than anything slept on in the army, including a male corporal, but playing 2 matches per day luckily wears you out enough to sleep well on the floor.

I was this year as last year representing the legends of Hafrsfjord Squash Club from Stavanger. 6 times national champions to represent Norway in the squash equivalent of Champions league. Last year we ended up with a respectable 12th place, and beat Denmark in the battle of Scandinavia, which must be said to be the highlight :)))

This year the field was much stronger and all the teams brought their A game and their A players. The top 3 players in the world were there as well as several living legends within the game. We were in a group with Aberdeen, Fitzwilliam and Nottingham. They are all very stron teams from Great Britain, and although we had some good battles, we had to accept defeat against all three teams in the group stages.

Personally I have had so much focus on technique lately that I went into the tournament with an attitude of enjoying myself and enjoying my squash to the fullest, not worrying about anything but to hit the ball where I wanted it to go.

Starting off with the world no11 Daryl Selby was not an easy task. especially not for a first match. I lost 0-3 and was not able to repeat last year when I snuk a game.
My second match was against Mark Fuller of NSRC. We had a good, long tight match which unfortunatelly ended 1-3. I felt I played well and gained confidence from this.
Versus Derek Ryan (former world no4) it was very patchy and I played well in periods. That meant that versus such an experienced player I just lost out 1-3 in a close match, that I was very disappointed in losing.

As my fingers are tired and I am lazy, I will rather upload some pictures from the weekend and let our coach Mark Hornby get the mic to comment on the last two matches:

Mark Hornby:
 The last day of competition saw the Norwegian Champions competing for a possible 13th       Position. To achieve this they would have to win both of their remaining matches.

The first was against Slovakia commencing at nine in the morning.

On court first was Kim he showed why he has the potential to break into the top 100 players in the world in the near future. He played disciplined squash particularly in the first two games closing the court down and not allowing his opponent to get into the match winning them comfortably. The third was a bit tighter as the Slovak player raised his game. However it was not enough to upset the steady play of the Norwegian who came home in three straight games.

On the other court at the same time was Ronny. He just lost out in a hard fought five set match.

Sindre followed on after Kim he played some good long rallies helped by the physical training he has been doing over the summer. He managed to win his match in three. The two victories and the two games Ronny had won was enough  for the Norwegian champions to take the tie.

 Kristian who was the last player on court only played a best of three games as it was a dead rubber.
 

The final playoff match was against the Swedish champions Roslagen from Linkoping.

The playing order was the same as the first match. Kim was against the experienced French player Romain Tenant who now resides in Sweden. He started tactically the same as he had in his first match closing the court down well and taking the first comfortably.
The experienced Frenchman tried to break up the rhythm of the match in the second and succeeded in changing to pattern of the game to suit himself. This part of the match was characterised by short rallies and more trading of shots. Kim just managed to maintain enough length in the latter part of the game to take it and go into a two game lead.
In The third game Kim managed to close the court down again increase the pressure on his opponent by doing so and closed the match out in three. A fine victory against potentially a difficult player!

On the adjacent court was Ronny who had another five set marathon match against a player of similar age and stature to himself. Unfortunately he again just lost out in a tight match for the second time in the day.

Sindre followed Kim on court. He took a bit of time to settle into a rhythm losing first two games against a smaller more agile opponent. Re-grouping and drawing on the stamina he has built up over the summer he clawed his way back into the match winning the next three tight games. This has proved a break through event for him!

Meanwhile Kristian was involved in another titanic five set battle on the other court. Unfortunately he could not manage to take the last few points in the fifth game and lost the match on a no let decision.

Kristians result produced a tie in both the number of matches and the number of games won by both teams. The winner was then decided by the number of points won by the teams in every match.

Hafrsfjord just scraped home by the narrowest of margins taking 13^th place. A great effort!
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COMMENT! Actually I won 3-1 versus Romain Tenant, and Ronny lost 3-1. Kristian lost 3-2, and Sindre won 3-1. Due to the fact Romain did not get as many points as Ronny, we won on points. And that my friends... to beat Sweden in ANY sport no matter the situation, time or place feels SO D*** GOOD!!! Ahahahahaha

We are claiming the title of best scandinavian squash team. There it is!!