Great turnout for the Summer Spain Tournament (0 comments)
The Summer Tournament (Torneig d'Estiu) was our return to singles competition after a 4-month break due to the Tri-Cup team competition. There was many anticipation, as many players were willing to show their skills, especially those who have just started this year and used the team competition as a training for the singles tournaments.
The turnout reflected this anticipation: 23 players, 8 for group A and 15 for group B, which is the best turnout in the current season, i think. We also had 5 new players: 4 who were totally new to the sport, and 1 who had started playing for this year's Tri-Cup for JCV team (Jonathan Malo). Plus, two classic players who were still unranked this season: Dani Álvarez and Fran Trallero.
GROUP B:
The group B chart was dangerous, because there were strong players with a low seeding, which led to hard first round pairings as Vanessa Iniesta - Fran Trallero, Rubén Martín - Jonathan Malo or Dani Álvarez - Ismael Santos. Trallero and Jonathan started great, and so did Albert Parrón, a young guy who had just played one tournament before, besides the Tri-Cup matches. Oriol Alonso, another almost-new guy had very good results in his first games.
The losers' bracket saw the early eliminations of the three new girls, Vanessa, Ismael Santos and Lorena Sturlese first, and Vero Llordén and Rubén Martín later. This was a terrible tournament for our girls playing in group B. Martín was one of the favorites for winning the group, but he was eliminated 7-6 by Ricardo Pérez.
The losers' bracket had two players showing their dominance: Dani and Ricardo. Both of them ran almost all acrosss the bracket until the 9th round game made them face each other. Only one of them could advance and Ricardo was merciless to Dani (7-2).
Meanwhile, in the winners' side, the dominance was shown by Albert and Jonathan, until they had to face each other in round 8. This game was as close as it could be and ended with a 7-6 victory for Jonathan. Albert fell to the losers' bracket and was crushed by Ricardo 7-2.
The final had two very different players: Ricardo, who was at his 3rd group final this season, knocking on group A's doors for the 3rd time; and Jonathan, a player at his first tournament experience. The match was played with great intensity. The score was 7-6, 4-7, 7-4 and the victory went to Jona the newcomer. An extraordinary upset! Folks, this guy really looks like a great player for the near future... let's see how can he do at the upcoming special tournament.
GROUP A:
The group A had 8 players: the typical 7 who are usually at the top-7 (Camacho, Mauro, Sergio, Cristina, Joan, Marc, Javi), plus Alberto, a player who had played just one tournament this season. The first game faced Alberto and Camacho and was such a big upset, a 7-6 victory for Alberto. Joan defeated Marc, who defeated him in a challenge match just a few days ago. The other 2 first round matches showed the victory of Sergio over Mauro and Javi over Cristina.
In the winners' bracket, Sergio defeated Alberto and Javi did the same to Joan.
In the loser's Mauro lost a game which was almost won against Camacho and Cristina made another major upset defeating and eliminating Marc, the current (at the time) number 1. Camacho and Cristina continued on their winning streak defeating the players coming from the winners' side, and in the game facing each other Cristina couldn't stop Camacho's impressive comeback. Neither did Sergio, who visited the losers' bracket after being beat by a great Javi in round 5.
So, the final showed a very interesting match against Javi, who went all through winners' bracket and Camacho who ran all over losers' one. Javi was very close to his first-ever tournament victory, but Camacho -again- came back and won his second tournament in a row (remember he was the winner at St. Jordi's T. in April), and this way, combining his great result with Marc's upset, he reached the #1 in the ranking for the f
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