Second place and a crazy trip home!

I should warn you before you start reading this blog! It's going to be a loooong read... It's so long I myself couldn't even find the energy to read it through one more time and correct mistakes! So if I couldn't read it through how do I expect you to? Well honestly I don't, you are free to choose. But if you do choose to read it all anyway, please forgive me for mistypes, spelling mistakes or any other flaws...

Enough about that - here goes!

Bitburger Open

My last update was a few hours before my semifinal match at Bitburger Open against Petr Koukal. Most of you probably already knew, but by reading the headline it should be no surprise to any of you that I managed to beat him. As I described in my previous post it was a big match for both of us. This clearly affected the level of play especially in the beginning where we both struggled to find any rythm. But after the interval at 11 in the first set I found a way to settle down and from 12-13 in the first I went on the win the match 21-14 21-4. Clearly Koukal never got settled and even if I did feel like I was playing very well in the second, I think it was obvious to everyone watching that he never got confident and didn't play his best - far from it.

Still the victory was a great boost for me. I've been in situations before where I've delievered a great result, like I did in the quarterfinal beating Yu Li, just to completely fall apart in the very next round. It didn't happen this time and to be honest, this is actually what pleases me the most about this whole tournament. If I ever want to win anything major I will have to learn how to be consistent over the course of a full tournament. I have done it many times on the EBU-circuit, but never at this level. So beating Koukal easily that day was a great step forward for me.


In the final I was up against Chen Long from China, the current world no. 11. Going into the final I had a 1-0 head-to-head record against him and I felt confident. But unfortunately I couldn't capitalize on my opportunities in the beginning of the third set and he then soon ran away. He was also clever enough to change his tactics in the final set and I never really found a good way to respond, so I will just have to admit I lost to a player who was better on the day. A rather uneven final ended with the scores 21-3 12-21 21-9 for him.

Of course it was disappointing to lose the final, but losing is (unfortunately) part of this game. This is not the first time, nor the last, I've lost. And when you play players at Chen Long's standard the possibility of losing will always be there, even if your playing well. That's how it is at this level.
That being said, I would have loved to win and I didn't feel great right after the final. But looking back at it now, I can accept my loss.

I still had a great week and produced what is my best result so far, so I would be unfair to myself if I wasn't satisfied with the performance.


The crazy trip home

The finals at Bitburger were being played so late in the day that I had to change my flight back home to Denmark. I was meant to fly sunday evening, but couldn't get on a flight until monday morning. So I booked a room at a airport hotel and had a good rest there. I was obviously a bit tired after a long week in Saarbrücken with six tough matches and since I had to play a danish league match monday evening, getting some rest was quite important.

Unfortunately monday didn't really turn out to be a good day for me. It started with me feeling quite bad in my groin, which also troubled me all of last week in Germany. When I got out of bed it felt really stiff and a bit painful when I walked. It loosened up after a little while, but to say I was looking forward to play on it the same evening would be a lie. But I was hoping to get home quickly and get some more rest to make it even better before the match. This was obviously not going to happen though...

I was on a plane at 9.30 from Frankfurt monday morning. Normally the trip to Copenhagen would take only a little more than one hour, but this one turned out to be an eight-hour journey. Yes you read it correct, 8(!) hours it took me to get from Frankfurt to Copenhagen. So instead of arriving in Copenhagen before 11 o'clock I ended up not being there until 15.30! The reason for this long delay is rather dramatic...

When we boarded the plane in Frankfurt there was an odd smell in the cabin, nothing we really took notice of, but it slowly got worse. After flying for about 20 minutes it was pretty bad and it more and more smelled like firesmoke. So the captain announced that we would have to make a securitylanding in Hannover, Germany. At this point people in the plane were still quite calm, but this was soon going to change...

The flight felt like it was running smoothly so people didn't really feel all that scared even if the smell was getting really bad, but all of a sudden the oxygenmasks came down with no warning. I'm sure you can imagine that was pretty scary and panic is a pretty good word to describe the next 10 seconds. Then the aircrew announced that the oxygenmasks were only in case people found the smell troubling their breathing, so I chose not to wear the mask as I really do think it was a little over the top. But most people didn't even hear what the aircrew said as they were already in panic. This was a quite bizzare experience, but we got down to the ground safely where lots of ambulances and firetrucks were waiting, but fortunately not needed.

We then got off the plane and was driven in a bus to the departure gates where we had to wait for several hours for a new plane that could take the last bit of way to Copenhagen. Some people where still in shock, but most of the passengers had the same feeling as me (it seemed) that it wasn't really that dramatic even though it also hit the news here in Denmark.

Leaguematch

Needless to say my plan of getting a lot of time to relax and get ready for the teammatch was not really working out for me :)

So when I finally arrived in Copenhagen I only had time to go home for a quick shower and a sandwhich before having to leave for the leaguematch. It was being played in Skælskør which is a one hour drive away, not exactly what I needed at this point, but what to do, there was no way out of it.

I arrived in the hall 50 minutes before the teammatch was about to kick off and 1 hour after my teammates. But as my singles was the last match to be played I had to wait another couple of hours before getting on court. When I finally did get on court I felt tired, powerless and had pain in my groin. No wonder really. My movement was hampered at best, but I really did not want to lose this match. I was playing a guy named Jeppe Lund, who's probably unknown to most of you, but he's not a bad player. Of course I was the big favourite, as I will be in all my leaguematches this year, but I knew I could not underestimate him.

Still he managed to win the first after some good play, but I still felt confident I would win if I just stuck to my gameplan. It worked out perfectly in the second and third set, right until the umpire made a very bad correction to a shot called out at 19-15 in the third. It should have been 20-15 and the win sealed more of less, but instead it got to 19-16 and my focus was off. I still managed to scrape home the win 21-19 and could finally see the end of a very long a tiring day. It wasn't pretty, but I didn't expect it to be. I was just happy to win, that was all I cared about.
We won the match 5-1 and therefore got a good start to the new season.


Round up and what's next?

So to round it all up, the last few days have been hectic for me. My groin is not feeling good after all this, but I'm looking after it and getting some treatment, so I really hope it won't bother me for too long. Today I have the day off training, I really need a day to fully relax and recover, but I still need to get back to training again tomorrow as I have another leaguematch to be played on thursday evening.

After that match I will take some very easy days, I might actually take the weekend off completely to recharge my batteries before starting another good long stint of hard training. I had a long period leading up to Bitburger Open with good and hard training, so it's important that I allow myself to slow down a little now.

My next big challenge will be three weeks in October/November where I play the Dutch, Denmark and French Opens. I will need to be in absolute top condition to perform well there, so getting some rest now will help me to be able to work harder leading up to those three tournaments.


That will be it for now, I'm impressed if there is still anyone reading at this point. To you I can only say thanks a lot and well done :)

/HK