Hard work has finally paid off!! An EBU tournament victory in the men’s doubles at the Victor Slovak Open in PreÅ¡ov.
For me the tournament started Thursday morning with a mixed doubles together with Iris Tabeling. We played against a Swiss pair and we didn’t play very well. After having lost the first game we managed to win the second and third but both were a close call. In the evening we played our next match and this time we could put pressure on our Polish opponents right from the beginning and control the entire match.
Friday afternoon it was time for the men’s doubles with Dave Khodabux and we played on the court which was covered by Badminton Europe TV. Thanks to our 2nd seeded position we had a bye in the first round. We were facing two Polish guys who played at a good pace which was very pleasant for us. We had no trouble defeating them in two games. Soon after this match our quarter final in the mixed doubles was scheduled. Iris and I were up against the third seeded Austrians Zirnwald and Baldauf. We lost the first game rather clumsily and the second game was just not good. It was noticeable that we never play together and the weaknesses in our game were clearly shown. The consequence was a large loss in the second game. A real shame.
The last match of the day was a doubles match with Dave and again against two Polish guys. Although it was a bit uncontrolled and messy we defeated them in two games and put ourselves at the semi-finals on Saturday. After a while it became clear that we would be the fifth match after 09.00 AM on the TV court which meant that we couldn’t make the 2.25 PM flight irrespective the result. That semi-final we played against two young Ukrainians. At first I played lousy. Bad defences and many mistakes. The result was a 10-17 backlog. From that moment on our chances changed completely and we survived 6 gamepoints. At our first game point we scored and won the first game by 25-23. In the second game we put a lot of pressure and we never lost control anymore. We won in two games and that brought us to the final.
In the final our opponents were the first seeded Polish guys Moren and Szkudlarczyk. The first game was our best since a long time and the Poles didn’t stand a chance: 21-10. In the second game the Polish pair adjusted their tactics and at first we didn’t have an answer to that. Suddenly we were 7-13 behind. In the end of the game we managed to more or less control it and we came to a 20-18 score. We couldn’t capitalize these first two matchpoints but a little later we took our third one. This meant our first EBU Tournament victory. A very nice feeling and an enormous discharge! It is for these moments that you work hard every day again.
The next day we had to travel back home. We took the 5.49 AM train to Bratislava. During this trip we crossed Slovakia and the scenery was great. What a fantastic country! In Bratislava we changed to a train to Vienna from where we took the plane to Amsterdam. It was a very long journey and I was glad to be home when we landed. From the airport I had to go straight to my club Duinwijck where my team was waiting for a photo shoot.
Next Saturday we have the first league match of this season against TFS in Bergen op Zoom and next week we go to Leuven for the Belgian International. Keep an eye on the site!!!