Ainey-la-Chateau: Day 1

Yesterday was an up and down day, well as much up and down as a day can be while relaxing in France, but it finished very, very up. I say up and down, because it started a little down, at least for me. At about 8:30 I woke up and drove into town to pick up our daily breakfast (4 croissants, 2 for each of us, and a coffee) and also scope out the tennis courts. When I arrived I was quite disappointed. The club was not too atheistically pleasing, in fact there were only 2 mediocre courts placed in front of a field of horses. In addition the reason we had come, good prize money, was a bit misleading. You see on the internet it only lists the total cash prize, but not how the money is divided amongst the winner, finalist, semifinalist, ect. In this particular tournament there is money awarded to the winner and finalist of each series. A series is a group of rankings, for example the rankings from 30/1 to 15/1 represent series 3. And from 5/6 to 0 represent series 2. So while there is a lot of money being awarded in this tournament, it is distributed amongst many people. I guess what people say is true, you shouldn't just chase money! Finally, many of the same people that played in Ardentes were playing this tournament, and the way the draw worked out Frankie and I would have to face each other in the semi-finals if we both won our first round match. Fortunately, we're traveling to bigger tournaments after this is so this is likely the last time this will happen.

The courts. Notice several horses on the right of the picture.

We didn't play until 18:00 so we killed time swimming in the pool, reading, and just lounging around our campsite. I also did quite a bit of work on scheduling our next tournaments which, considering I don't speak French, can be quite time consuming and difficult. I always call the tournaments and say, "Bonjour. De sole, je ne parle pas français. Do you speak English?" The first part translates to "Hello, I'm sorry I don't speak French." Now if they speak a little English we can get by. But if they don't speak any, and there is no one in the clubhouse who does, we have a bit of a Mexican standoff as we try and figure out how we are going to communicate on a phone without using words. Again, this can be time consuming and difficult. 

Frankie's lunch of chorizo and bread. Doesn't take much to make him happy.

We finally made our way to the courts around 17:00 after grabbing a pre-meal snack of baguettes and Camembert. Frank hopped on court first against an older 5/6 while I had to wait about 15 minutes to face a 4/6 15 year-old. Both of us started a bit slow, I guess that's what lounging in the pool for 6 hours will do to you, and we were also ill prepared for the speed of these hard courts. But we quickly turned things around and I grabbed my first set 6-4, while Frank took his 6-2. In the second set things were a bit dicier. I found myself down 3-4,  40-15 with my opponent serving. He had all the momentum and it felt like I hadn't won a point in several games. But somehow I turned it. He missed a makable volley at deuce and then folded. I held at relative ease to go up 5-4 and then he played an abysmal game making errors on 4 straight shots to give me the match 6-4, 6-4. After the match one of the few people that spoke English said it was the best match he's ever seen played on the Ainey-la-Chateau tennis courts. That doesn't speak too highly for tennis around here, considering the quality was not all that high. 

Francois had also found himself in a bit of a fight. He wasn't playing his best tennis and faced a set point down 4-5, 30-40. After a long exchange his opponent lobbed him and Frankie unloaded on an overhead. But it seems he's spent a bit too much time in the gym lately, as he smacked it a half an inch long. Somehow his opponent missed the call and gave Frankie the point. Big mistake. Frank won the game then reeled off the next 2 for a 6-2, 7-5 win. We meet in the semi-finals in about two and half hours and neither of us are feeling up to the task.

Why's this you ask? Because the folks at Ainey-la-Chateau are as kind as the folks in La Chatre and Ardentes. But these folks are drinkers. In La Chatre l'aperitif was a bottle of wine and cheese. Here it was much whisky as you can drink and a few potato chips. After a round of drinks we decided to head home because the dinner they were serving was quite expensive, and we had a match in the morning. It was the sensible thing to do. But as we were pulling out of the parking lot the tournament director and his translator came sprinting out and told us that if we wanted to stay we could eat for free. Of course we accepted and what a fantastic decision it was. I'm not sure I've ever really eaten a dinner like this. The dinner was more party than dinner and throughout the entire meal one person or another was standing on the table singing some French drinking song that everyone followed along with. There were a few rugby players at the dinner that really knew some tunes and one man who Frankie dubbed Andre Agassi, because he was bald, was emceeing the whole night. He also absolutely loved being called Andre Agassi and despite the fact he spoke practically no English kept yelling, "Where Steffi Graf? Oh Steffi! Where Steffi?" The dinner lasted about 4 hours and by the time it was midnight we had to go home. The French woman, who seem to do a disproportionate amount of work around here, insisted that they drive our car home as it was much safer and we agreed. So now we play each other, albeit both slightly hindered by last night's decisions. The winner plays in the finals at 4:30 and we're told that there is an even bigger party tonight, which they insisted we come to. If we make it through the evening, I'll try and report back tomorrow. 

The grilling process. We mistakenly said we like our meat quite rare, which in France is apparently hardly cooked. It was good, but we probably have some sort of bacterial infection.

-Max