Tournament playing

Our first competitor was DEZA Valašské Meziříčí team, long-acting in 1st league. Although our opponent has not put the strongest group together, we were really nervous because of the importance of the match. A victory would ensure our third place in the group and our continuance in the 1st league for the next season. On the contrary if we had lost, our team would have been closer to the possible fall into the lower league. The weather was wet and the match was interupted few times, however, our players fought hard and managed to decide the match already in singles. The final victory of 8:1 let us relaxed for the next match.

The next day we were supposed to play against B-team of Realsport Nymburk. They were a clear leader of our group but surprisingly they had lost the very first day playing against Slavia Plzeň 1:8. After the first three singels it seemed that our opponent is clearly the winner. Petr Vaníček, Honza Bezděčka and Bára Bachmanová all lost in two sets. Our first hope came with Petr Lajkep, whose opponent had to give up the match due to an injury at a score of 4:4 at the first set. The second point was ensured by Martin Jureček who broke through an unfavourable situation and after the first lost set he managed to win. At the second women doubles Kristýna Horáková gained a victory during a very equal match full of turnovers - she won 7:6, 7:6. And the score was tight! For the men´s doubles the opponent put on its best players and became a clear leader again. Although Martin Jureček and Petr Lajkep did their best, they lost against Lustig - Kovačka 3:6, 2:6. Very equal match was presented by first doubles, where our new couple Petr Vaníček and Libor Sedláček played against Vrbka-Vojtíšek. During the first set it was our opponent who was lucky but from the second set our couple overruled the court and leveled the score to 4:4. At the women´s doubles our Bára Suková and Kristýna Horáková did not give our opponent´s couple a chance and our victory was a big surprise.

Our opponent for the third day was a team of Slavia Plzeň - neither them nor us lost so far. The winner was going to play against Sparta and Olymp the following day - both teams were filled by popular players. Our previous victory over Realsport really motivated us and we were ready to fight hard for the first place in our group. Martin Jureček opened with a clear win, while our number ones Honza Bezděčka a Kristýna Horáková lost against their opponents in equal matches. Maria Biryukova defeated the last year Pardubice junior winner Klára Kopřivová in two sets. For our Petr Lajkep was the agressively playing opponent Radim Urbánek too much. The last chance to level the score had Libor Sedláček who lost against an experienced opponent Jan Říha 6:7, 2:6. In the men´s doubles we were not thought of a leader either and we were not able to show the same surprise as we had done the day before. Our opponent won both matches. The last match of women´s doubles was controlled by Bára Suková a Kristýna Horáková, who confirmed their invincibility in doubles - they clearly won the match and ensured the final score of 3:6.

The final 2nd place at the group was an unexpected success - thanks to a great team and enthusiastic performances of our players. Not only that our team represented itself very well in Rakovník, but also our players gained a lot of great individual results and some selfconfidence for the upcoming tournaments.