On the Airport in Trondheim Norway getting ready to take off to the next adventure in Riccione Italy for this years European Club Championships. This years ECC has a record entry, so there will be many good teams and players in the Champions League of squash..
Here is their website: http://www.federsquash.it/european-club-championship-2013
There will be live streaming from the courts here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=m-ch-fea&v=1rrgEosn2iY&app=desktop
We play at 12 and 16.30 on Wednesday 18.09
Here is the draw: http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draw.aspx?id=9CF72105-5DA3-4944-8B28-250DE3D03418&draw=4
Unfortunatelly for me I got a small re injury on my left ankle, which is quite bothersome, and I am afraid I can not give it my all during the tournament. I hope, naturally, for a super speedy recovery, but it does not feel good. Hopefully I can play some matches to help the team, and if not we have good reserves on the team to step in. The team is already weakened as the Norway no2 is not playing either.
Happy news in the sad news, Its my birthday tomorrow!! Whoopwhoop. According to the newspapers I am 25, so we will go with that. My best bud Mags is studying in Bologna, so she will accompany me and the boys for a small get together tomorrow :)
Day 1:
First day presented us with a great challenge and probably the most important match of the tournament for us. This was against 5th seed Luxembourg led by Netherland ex professional Dylan Bennet. This was my challenge, who was first on court, with Ronny on the other court taking on Lux no1 Nathan Sneyd. Proper birthday squash as neither me or Dylan produced squash to be inspired by. With a referee worse than both of us put together it was an embarassing view and I lost 1-3. Ronny lost against a difficult player 0-3. Saved by our no3 and 4 player Lasse and Sindre, we tied 2-2 in matches and got 1 point on the board. However, they got 1 game more, so the remaining matches would be crucial.
In the afternoon we faced 4th seed Colets from England, with Jonathan Kemp as no1 string and ex world no4 Alex Gough (!!) as no4 string. The challange proved way too big for... all teams as they chopped all other teams in the group without dropping a game. My ankle was still painful, but I really wanted to play Jon Kemp, who i have watched a lot over the years. Score line was 1-7-1 as I got severly chopped on live streaming but hey. one for the history books...or not :P
Day 2:
After a good nights rest, the team got up for a good breakfast together and got ready to take on Edinburgh at 1pm local time. We knew we all had to win all 4 matches to have a chance in claiming a spot in the quarter finals, and we were all ready for it. Clever Scots however put their no2 player on the no4 spot to put sticks in our wheels, and it worked as the 4th string match ended 1-3 favouring the haggis munchin blue n whites. Ronny won 3-0, I battled my way to a 3-2 win against a tricky player, and Sindre pulled back from 0-2 down to win a great match 3-2. There was still hope as Luxembourg also did not get any games vs Colets. Thanks to poor mathematical skills from mine and Lasses side, we saw a hope of us being 1 game up vs Luxembourg and making the quarter finals... but the administrations computer, calculated otherwise, and it was us being 1 game down instead. Soooo close making top 8, which would b a great performance and an all time high (I think) but it just slipped our oily hands.
Picture below: Counting matches, games, points
Day 3:
First of all, I need to correct myself from earlier, where I said we played from 9-12. All of the teams that not went through to the quarter finals had to play for the last 9-17th spots.
First up we had to play Hungary. We knew very little about the team, and myself and Sindre started off. The Hungarians thought it was a good idea to referee themselves, and this created a number of problems for the Norwegians. Sindre lost 3-0 to a better opponent. I felt I was quite a lot stronger than my opponent, and took the first game quite comfortably. The next game was tighter, up until 9-9, where I stroked him 4 times, and his team mate refereeing gave lets and no lets. I kept fighting, even though their supporters screamed their hearts out every time I missed a shot, but lost in a long tie-break. Shame I lost a game, but for the match it suited me better. I stepped up a gear in the next 2 games and took the match 3-1. Ronny lost his match 2-3, so Lasse had to bring it home for the team. With a 3-0 win, we would go through on games, a 3-1 win would mean a draw. Unlucky for us (again) Lasse won 3-2 after playing some great squash in patches and 11-1 in the 5th. This meant we lost on one game again. I found out the Hungarians reffed Ronnys match as well in the same manner as mine, and not only that, but they pulled the same stunt in the next match against Ukraine to win on games again to get through to the 9-10 play off.
We faced Poland only 2 hours later to all win our matches. A 4-0 victory, to save ourselves from the bottom. Next up is the Belgium team Castle squash to battle for 13-14th place. A bit of a disappointment after being so close to top 8, but the job still needs to be done, no matter the opponent. Today Niclas will be stepping in for Sindre and get some good squash in his legs and good experience in the bag for future brilliance.
Day 4:
On our last
day of match play in Riccione, we got up early to take on Castle club from
Belgium. The referees continued their excellent system of letting our opponents
ref our matches, so again I had to take on several opponents at once. My game
had improved over the last days, and it was easier to hit the ball at last. I
tried my best to stick to gameplan, and it worked better than earlier in the
week, but it could still be even stronger. Coach said I was in full control of
that match, and my opponent did all the running, but I took the ball in short
still a bit too early. I noticed this, when the counter attack came and he
scored points as I could not move to the front as my ankle was still sore from
my injury. Moving around the T did not pose as many problems, so I should be
better at working a clear opening from this position. Although I was happy with
most of my game, I was disappointed for the team as I lost 3 close games 13-11,
11-9, 11-8 with a string of dodgy decisions at the end of each game, especially
seeing that we lost with 7 points after a 2-2 tie and a great performance from
the other team mates. Especially happy for Niclas, who got his debut win 3-1
over the Belgian number 4 player.
Although we
again lost a tie, we were still happy on how we ended the tournament. Looking
at it with a sense of humour as we had a huge string of bad luck throughout.
Our seeding will now drop for next year, but I believe we will come back
stronger.
The
tournament was probably one of the best so far in terms of organization. The
hotel was good, food and transport great and a nice venue. It’s a shame though
that the referee quality and organization failed so badly on all aspects and
pulled the tournament experience down. Many of the referees were very fresh to
the game, up to 30 minutes late to not only the morning matches, but also the
semi finals and letting teams referee their own way through to a better seeding
is not the way to do it. Many teams and players struggled with the referees,
and I personally had to educate the head referee on a very very basic concept
in squash. The referee gave a let when it was a clear stroke to my opponent, as
I lost equipment on court. The head referee came over to assess the situation
and told us all that with loss of equipment on court it is always a let. All in
shock I confronted the head referee after the match and told him the rules,
where he replies that he did not see the situation, and did not know what he
was saying……… que!!?? If only Jonathon Power was here… he would know what to
say…
A local newspaper from the clubs hometown, made a story of the players before the championship. See it here: http://solabladet.no/index.php?page=vis_nyhet&NyhetID=8297&sok=1
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