Prague

Whew! That was tiring. Losing in the second round of the winners sucks. We played the maximum number of matches you can play in a tourney over the 4 days we played. Couple that with playing on Monday in Russia and it makes for a long week. Needless to say, I am tired and sore and it didn't help to jump on a 24 hour plane ride the next day. Good to be home though.

On Thursday we played Australia in our first match and should have lost. We won 15-13 in the third but were down by 4 points during that game. In our second match we lost to Jake and Rosy in 2 games. They smoked us the first and the second was 22-20. They played well. We were sluggish and slow and they were on point. So were the aussies for that matter. They served us very tough and got a lot of aces and shanks as did Jake and Rosy. Especially Rosy. His jump serve was on and was creating point opportunities for them.

On Friday we started our long climb through the losers. We played Georgia first and beat them in 2. Then played a Russian team and beat them in two. Played our third game against another Russian team and won in 2 tight games. Small note here, Russia had 4 teams in the main draw. 3 through the qualifier. Impressive. Look for them to continue that trend over the next couple of years and become another strong country like Brasil, Germany and the USA. Most of the guys that are qualifying are under 25.

On Saturday the matches got much tougher. We played the Spaniards in the 7th place match and won in 3. They had match point in the second game but I squeaked one by Pablo and then we scored 2 in a row. The third was tight as well. On match point for us, they served me and I jousted with Pablo, I lost the joust but covered it and set Phil on two. He squeaked, and I do mean squeaked it by Pablo for the kill and match. We then played Jake and Rosy and beat them in 3 games. We won the first, they the second and the third was tight until a bad call went against them. Phil had a micro touch on a ball that landed out of bounds after a long rally. They went ballistic. I think the score was 7-6 at the time. We went up 10-6 after that and won 15-11. In our third and final match of Saturday we played Brink and Reckermann. We played well and won in 2 games convincingly to make it to the finals.

Sunday was the finals and we played Allison and Emanuel. The first we played almost flawlessly. We sided out, served, blocked, defended ect... all very well. In the second everything switched as they were on and we were not. However, at the end of the second we scored some points and I straightened out my sideout game to shift momentum our way. We carried that into the third and went up 4-0 to start. We carried that through to the end winning 15-11.

Prague as a city is really cool. After the final we went to Prague Castle and a Bridge built 700 years ago and still servicing foot traffic and the old town square. Really cool place and recommend it if ever you can get there. Wish I had had more time to explore.