Yesterday evening the away match versus my former club van Zijderveld Amstelveen was scheduled. For me more or less a home match because I have played for this club 5 years and with much pleasure. Â
In the men’s doubles Koen Ridder and I won quite easy from Virgil Soeroredjo and Joris van Soerland, my former club coach. Also the ladies doubles was won by Duinwijck in 2 games. Eva Krab played a good single match versus Linda Chen, but in the third game she had to accept the superiority of Linda mainly because of a lack of single rhythm. Also both men’s singles were lost. Erik Meijs was defeated by Lester Oey in three games and Jerry Natenstedt played an unfortunate match versus Virgil. As Monique van der Woude, her opponent in the ladies single, couldn’t play because of a knee injury, Karina de Wit didn’t have to play and got her point “free of charge”. At this stage of the meeting it meant an intermediate score of 3-3.  Â
The two mixed doubles should make the difference. In the first match Eva Krab and I played against the married couple van Soerland. With Georgy I played so many mixed doubles matches in the past that it was a kind of strange to have her as an opponent now. Eva and I managed well to keep the pressure on them and, in spite of the fact that we took a big lead in both games, we stayed focussed. We scored the forth point by winning with 21-13 and 21-14. Finally Koen Ridder and substitute Betty Timmerman – Krab took care of the winning point. They defeated their adversaries in two games also, putting the final score on 5-3 in the advantage of Duinwijck. In the league we are now sharing the second place with van Zundert Velo one point behind Amersfoort which managed to win all 8 points this weekend.
Next week the ninth duel is scheduled. On Saturday evening we’ll meet BC Victoria at home. The coming week I will also play the Bitburger Open in Saarbrücken Germany. Dave and I have an tough draw because already in the first round we’ll meet the third seeded Germans Kindervater and Schöttler. Last year at this tournament we lost from them in the semi finals in three games. These Germans have had an outstanding year so far and they have been keeping a steady 15th place in the world ranking. It is going to be a hard match, but….there are always chances! You can follow the tournament via www.toernooi.nl and as usual I will also keep you informed via my site and Twitter.