Emotional Roller Coaster
As in the Osaka event, a lot of top teams are playing in these last 2 events before World Champs. We were back in the qualifier in this event too, but unlike last year, being ranked 8th instead of 30th shows the progress we are making! We meet a Spanish team first, should have won in 2 sets but I have no problem in admitting that I was struggling with being quite tired as well as dealing with the midday heat! We won and had a good break before we meet a Russian team, our last game top make it into the main draw. In a very tightly fought game we lost it in the 3rd set and the disappointment of not qualifying, which we had not felt for so long, was as painful and frustrating as ever. Feeling a mixture of frustration, disappointment and anger we dragged our suitcases down the road from the main draw hotel that we had left our bags at in anticipation of staying there and checked into a hotel we could afford! ‘Luck’ was on our side on Tuesday (luck does not win you games! But it does in the matter of a coin toss!!). A main draw team had withdrawn due to injury and when that happens there is what is called ‘Luck Loser’ where there is literally a coin toss between the top 2 ranked teams of the last round of qualifier and the winner makes main draw! We have been in one other Lucky Loser toss and last time we lost…….. but I am happy to report we now have 50% success in our lucky loser tosses!
So after the heart break of losing and not making main draw, the anticipation of the coin toss and then the excitement and relief of winning it, we had a emotional start to the Seoul tournament!
Korea is not a strong beach volleyball nation, actually they are rubbish. But being a host country they can put 2 teams into the main draw, and they did. Who ever meets these teams is a lucky sod as it is a given win – harsh but true. We did not meet a Korean team, but one of the Korean teams seeding at 8 in the main draw did mean that our first game was against the Brazilian team that actually went onto with the event instead of a slightly lower seed from Germany. We actually had a close game against them, even set point in the first set. But their experience shone in the end. Our next game was against a team from Norway that has been rather successful in the past and we were surprised that they lost their first game! Another game that could have been a lot different as we had set point in the second set, but again, some wrong decisions and errors let us down.
Another 25th is better than not qualifying, but not enough to help us be in the top 45 teams that make the cut for World Championships. We will find out on June 11th if we qualify.
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