2nd Bayshore Open (Doubles event)
Venue:
Date & Time:
Registration Fee: $20 per
person
Format: Best of 3 sets (3rd
set will be a tiebreak only)
Teams:
Group
A
Group
B
The first match in Group A
was a thriller. The toss coin was won by
the team-up of Alger-Erle so they decided to let the team-up of Jepoy-Ban start
the serve. Jepoy served first but was
immediately broken. The next few games
were held and the first set was immediately over, 4-2, for Alger-Erle. But the home team of Jepoy-Ban (both
residing in Bayshore Park) came back strong with Jepoy covering the net very
well and Ban providing good baseline support for an easy 4-1second set
win. The last set (a tiebreak) was again
easily won by Jepoy-Ban, 7-4, for their first win of the tournament.
The second match in Group A
was between the team-up of Eugene-Mark against Mader-Rene. The game was dominated by the latter as they
won in two sets, 4-2 and 4-1 respectively.
The third and fourth matches both went to the third set tiebreak. Team-up of Eugene-Marco beat Alger-Erle 4-0,
2-4, 7-2 while Jepoy-Ban came from behind again to win against Mader-Rene, 0-4,
4-2, 7-4.
The first semi-final slot was
taken by Jepoy-Ban while the other three teams still have a chance to enter the
semis. Eugene-Marco need
to beat the top team of the group, Jepoy-Ban and hope that Alger-Erle will beat
Mader-Rene. But everything went wrong
for them in their last game as they were beaten again in two straight sets,
4-2, 5-3. In
the last match, the only chance of Alger-Erle to enter the semis is to beat
Mader-Rene in two sets. In the first
set, Alger-Erle got one step closer to enter the semis as they beat Mader-Rene,
4-2. But in the second set, the latter
came back and easily won the set, 4-1.
This assured them of a semi-final slot and the tiebreak was just a
confirmation that they are really the better team with a 7-4 win.
In the other Group, the first
match was between the team-up of Paul-Clint against the team-up of
Aljoes-Neil. The first set was so close
that the only way to see who wins it is through a tiebreak and it was
Aljoes-Neil who came out victorious with a 5-4 (7-1) win. Paul-Clint immediately worked their way back
with a 4-2 win of the second set. But
the third set tiebreak was not theirs as they lost 7-3 and give Aljoes-Neil
their first win.
All of the other matches in
Group B reached the third set tiebreak, which clearly shows the equality of all
the teams. The other results for Group
B: Rico-RJ beat Paul-Clint 0-4, 4-1,
8-6; Aljoes-Neil beat Mike-Sey 4-2, 1-4, 7-4; Rico-RJ beat Mike-Sey 0-4, 4-2, 7-4. The other
matches were not played because the two semi-finalists are already known and
there wasn’t enough time to play them. A
toss coin was done to determine the seeding in Group B and it was the team-up
of Rico-RJ who got the top seed while the team-up of Aljoes-Neil grabbed the
second semi-final slot.
In the semi-finals, both the
matches were also decided by the third set tiebreak. The Group B teams drew first blood on both
matches by winning the first set.
Rico-RJ won 4-2 because of the good overall play by Rico. There was no stopping him as he was hitting
almost 90% of their shots. A fan was
overwhelmed by his excellent court coverage and was heard saying “He’s everywhere”. While this was going on, the other semi-final
game was being played just beside their court with a lot more people watching
because the quality of tennis is higher and the match-up is more equal. But it was Aljoes-Neil who won 4-2 against
the less inspired Jepoy-Ban.
In the second set, it was all
business for the Group A teams as they equalized. Mader-Rene came back with a 4-1 win against
Rico-RJ. There was more drama in the
second set as there were longer rallies, a lot more winners for Mader-Rene and
Rico-RJ being plagued with injuries. The
injuries were indeed their downfall in the second set as RJ was hit with cramps
in his right calf because he wasn’t used to long rallies. In the other game, it was the team of
Jepoy-Ban who upped their game a little bit and won the set 4-2.
In the tiebreak, the momentum
was with Mader-Rene as they lead early.
It was here where the longest rally was played. There were 82 strokes in that point with Rico
hitting 40 strokes, Mader 38, Rene 3 and RJ 1.
It was also here where the shot of the tournament was shot. With match point for Mader-Rene, Rene came to
the net and volleyed deep but Rico recovered but came up short so, Rene did a
smash and again Rico got the shot back but the return didn’t almost cross the
net and all that Rene had to do was to smash the ball hard and it was game over
and so he did but as soon as the ball was about to hit the back wall, RJ hit
the shot of the tournament by returning the shot way deep and forced Mader to
an error and save a match point. But in
the next match point they won the game and booked themselves a place in the
finals. In the other match, not much
drama in the game as Jepoy-Ban easily beat their opponent, 7-2. Instead of pouring their anger in the court,
Aljoes-Neil just poured it outside – by eating their hearts out.
The final was just a
confirmation on who the better team was and it was still the home team of Jepoy-Ban
who won the match with a convincing 6-4 win over Mader-Rene. There was no denying that they have the edge
over the other teams because both of them are playing in the class B of
Ronald’s Cup. The other teams are more
balanced with some playing in Class A or B but their teammates are playing in
Class C. But it doesn’t matter which
class the teams play as long as their game corresponds to one another.
After the tournament, the
teams who were not able to eat (because of a lot of games) got the chance to
eat. There was also a raffle draw for
the tennis balls that were used and unused.
Everyone who played is included in the raffle ala survivor where the
first person drawn will be out until there are only two people left and both
will win 4 cans of Slazenger balls (3 used and 1 unused). And the winners of those balls were RJ and
Paul. Ban was the last person drawn and
it was just right because he already gets a beautiful trophy for winning the
tournament. Last but not the least was
the awarding of trophies to the runner-up and champion.
Overall, it was a success
because everyone enjoyed the tournament (I hope so). Of course, there are losers but that’s part
of learning. Anyway, there’s another
tournament next month and you might be the next champion. =)