15.06.2009
Victory for men Interclub !
Wow. What a match. We traveled 1 hour and 20 minutes to the countryside of Fribourg. In the US, we would have called it Boonie Ville! The sun was shining bright with not a cloud in the sky. We met first at the hotel for a great team breakfast courtesy of Tore and JoTo. The day looked to be perfect. Until... When we arrived at the village of Neyruz, we witnessed first hand the irony of a beautifully groomed court which looked reminiscent of the red clay of Roland Garros. The moment we stepped onto the court, the reality of the carpet covered with millions of tiny red rubber pellets set in. What the heck was this surface! Then, their Captain said number 5 and number 6 play first. Great, except that our number 6, Erik Bjorkman was still stuck in traffic 50km away in Morges. After explaining in my bad french, with the help of Urs Ruppli and Olivier Schott's translation, Neyruz finally agreed. The match eventually started with number 4, Vincent Latrille and number 5 Albi Arapi. On paper, these matches should have been easy. However, things did not start as planned. Vincent was broken right away to go down 0-1. Albi started in his usually slow motion instructional video style. Vincent recovered quickly and disposed of his opponent 6-2, 6-1 Well done Vincent! Our first of 5 required wins was in the bag!!! Albi's slow motion style did not bother his opponent at all. Albi started to slip on the rubber pellets and become increasingly disgusted with the low level of play by his opponent. Olivier and I got more action by retrieving Albi's opponents balls, as the guy managed to hit at least 18 serves into the field without landing in the court. Albi was not laughing. After losing the first set 5-7 to the guy who was not even wearing tennis shoes, he fell to a 1-4 whole in the second. With all of us cheering for Albi, the decisive point came. At break point with the opponent serving, Albi hit a forehand deep. "Out!!" Before Albi had a chance to cross the net to argue the call, my American roots came out. "What!? Are you sure? Do you see a mark? No mark means line buddy! Maybe you should take off your sunglasses. The ball was on the line!!" Lucky for me, Pascal dragged me away and shut me up. However, Olivier somehow lost his Swiss elegance and also began barking at the guy. The ball was clearly in. After a bit of "discussion" between Albi and the Opponent, they agreed. The ball was indeed in. And clearly in. Albi broke! 2-4 and to serve. After what seemed to be a painfully bad movie, Albi won the second set 7-5. The Third set, Albi dumped the slow motion and started immediately to blast his serve. 4 balls. 4 service winners! The 3rd set lasted 10 minutes. Albi pulled off a tremendous 3 set win. 5-7, 7-5, 6-0. Next on was Erik Bjorkman (6) and Andrew Ruppli(1). Andrew's match was straight forward with a good 6-1, 6-4 win. A slight scare when Andrew slipped on the baseline, but he brushed off the pellets and moved on. Erik's match was tricky. The opponent had a big serve and Erik was having difficulty to snap his usually big forehand. Things progressed quickly, but not in our favor. Erik lost 5-7. 2-6. We were now leading 3-1 with Nicolas Habisreutiger (3) and Jonas Meinecke (2). Jonas played very very calm. Dictating points with cool drop shots and big serves. He won easily 6-1, 6-1. JoTo up 4-1. One more to go and we make 1st League!!! Nicolas got an early break to go up 1-0. Things started to look really good. Then the another drama began to unfold. Before we knew it, Nicolas lost the first set 4-6 and was down a break in the 2nd set! Nicolas threw away his hat in frustration and started talking to himself. His balls got shorter and shorter and his Opponent took advantage. At 2-5 in the second set, Nicolas asked for some water. I took this opportunity to run on court and try to calm him down. "Hit the ball a little deeper, play your game. Take things point by point." Not sure if the advice worked, but Nicolas pulled through the second set with a 7-5 win! Way to hang tough Nicolas!! The second set was tight and to the wire. With the Neyruz fan base growing in time for the BBQ, their cheers for the Opponent became louder and louder...after a long fight and the Opponent serving for the match, Nicolas managed to break. Game over, Nicolas won 4-6, 7-5. 6-4. JoTo wins 5-1 ! JoTo wins!!!!!! Premier League it is.