Yesterday afternoon I came back from Wroclaw in Poland where we played the Polish International last week.
First of all my apologies for the limited information on my site and on Twitter. The internet in our hotel was very bad: reason why it wasn’t possible to give regular updates.
This time I played two events. Apart from the men’s double with Dave I could also play the mixed doubles with Samantha. The last international tournament we played together was 2 months ago and that was noticeable. Our opponents were the first pair from the Ukraine and, as far as I am concerned, we lost unnecessarily with 21-23 and 19-21. I played too hasty and careless which made me make quite some unnecessary mistakes. It was a pity because we played only half of what we are able to and it should have been possible to make this match a win. I really hope that the coming weeks when we prepare ourselves for the European Championships the mixed doubles will get some more attention than usual. The trust will benefit from some specific exercises and the corresponding multi shuttle trainings.
The men’s doubles tournament went a lot better. The first round isn’t worth mentioning except that we needed 16 minutes only to defeat our opponents. In the second round we met the Austrians Koch and Zauner for the third time this year. In Sweden we won the match in two very well played games. During the European Team Championships for men in Amsterdam we needed three long games to book the win and last Friday it was a two game victory again.
Saturday afternoon, in the quarter finals, we met the British combination Ellis and van Rietvelde. Although we didn’t get the right rhythm we won the first game with 22-20. The second game we lost with the same figures. At a certain stage in the third game we were facing a 9-15 arrears but than we managed to score a series of consecutive points. From that moment on we stayed close to each other and in the final stage we managed to beat them: 21-19. Â
That evening in the semi finals we met the Russians Ivanov and Sozonov who were also our opponents in the final in Sweden 2 months ago. Just like then we again didn’t stand a chance although we played a much better match but the level difference is still big. Especially our service situation was not good enough and one way or the other this should improve if we want to link up with the (sub) world top.  Â
The coming weeks we shall train very hard for the Dutch International and the European Championships in Sweden and I feel that I have the necessary fighting spirit.
Tags: badminton, jorrit de ruiter, Papendal, Polish International