I hopped on the French tournament championship train with a shellacking of a 1/6 player 6-0, 6-0. I think this is the first time I've won a match 6-0, 6-0 since the 12s and it felt pretty damn good. I was playing an older gentlemen, probably in his 40s, who was a -2/6 back in his prime. Before the match we had lunch at the club with him, his wife, his child, and some other members. The atmosphere was quite cordial, wine was served and jokes were made about me drinking too much wine at lunch. But the joke was on him. He really did not enjoy losing 0 and 0 and I definitely sensed that he felt I had disrespected him to some degree. But there was no way I was going to give him a pity game just so he didn't feel bad.
Presentation of my (gigantic) trophy
It wasn't the best ball striking I've ever had in a match, but my level of focus and concentration was superb. If I could channel half of what I had yesterday into every match I would be quite dangerous. For winning the tournament I received a nice payday as well as a giant trophy, hand made by some woodworker. The giant trophy's we have both received are cool, but we hardly have room to carry them in our car.
My trophy.
The car is full. Very, very full.
Last night we slept at the Ardentes Tennis Club in our nice little spot by the river and had a very lazy start to the day. We basically ate croissants and then went to Flunch. You've probalby never heard of Flunch, but Flunch is fantastic. The best way to describe it, is it's a French take on the buffet. You order one of about 15 different entrees and then enter a dining area where you can help yourself to as many vegetables, french fries, pasta, salad, ect. as you would like. The best part is it costs about €6 , so we frequent Flunch often and obviously get our money's worth. Frankie thinks he's got a million dollar idea with his invention of the 'Flunch-pod'. A little pod that you enter after you eat as much Flunch as humanly possible to nap for €1 an hour. Only to wake up and continue to devour more Flunch. He really can't stop talking about the Flunch-pod. I think he has problems.
Like a kid in a candy store.
Right now we are in the office of tourism in Chateauroux, the same town where we saw Julian Marley perform the other night. We have a 60 kilometer drive to our next tournament which is in the town of Ainay-Le-Chateau. This tournament is limited to 1/6 and we're only playing because it randomly has a very large cash prize for a tournament limited to 1/6. We play our first rounds tomorrow night at 18:00, and based on the timing it looks like we'll start in the quarterfinals, though I'm not sure. After this tournament we're really going to start heading south because it's only 13 days until La Tomatina! Also enjoy the video below. I have a problem with leaving things on the roof of the car.
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