BVG fights for honor and glory in Ford Utrecht Castellum Open
BVG fights for honor and glory in Ford Utrecht Castellum Open
Last saturday march 5th an international group of players from BV Gaasperdam participated in the Ford Utrecht Castellum Open. Yes that is correct, our Danish hero Terry Liu was amongst the participants, his first official tournament in 13 years! Other participants are Mickey “snotter” Potthoff, Rosa and Melissa Hondeman aka The Bulldozers, Shelley “kwakel” Waterman, Sandra “mud master” van Rooijen and ofcourse myself. Rosina “bakker” Clemens coached us through the day and made sure we got enough sugar intake to survive for the day.
I had the honour to pickup Terry to travel to Vleuten and while he said he wasn’t nervous I doubt he was speaking the truth there! Terry’s first match was alongside Melissa in the mixed doubles and while they fought hard their opponents were simply better. Terry’s next match was a single against an old Martinus player Wouter Tas.
While Terry was a bit less nervous he couldn’t play his A-game yet and Wouter simply played a good match. Melissa felt really bad for Terry and offered to cuddle with him between first and second set. Terry, obviously shocked by the proposal, did not manage to improve his game in the second set. Afterwards we were told that Melissa meant a hug rather than cuddle, but I guess we will never know for sure! At least we introduced a new tradition for the day which was to group-hug Melissa after every game she played, so at the end of the day we all smelled like Melissa! I’ll refrain from further comments as to whether that is a good thing or not! Terry did manage to win a few rounds in the men’s double alongside Mickey but unfortunately Mickey was not feeling too well and during the semi-finals went out of energy, big pity because our guys had their chances to proceed to the finals! For Mickey the tournament was no big success. Normally he is super fit and unbreakable in the singles but this time the lights went out in the 3rd game in his first match and he had to accept defeat. Our final competitor in the 6 category is Shelley. She played mixed double with a friend from “de kwakel”. Apparantly that is a badminton club but I never heard of it. They played a tight match but lost in 3 games. The ladies doubles she played with a wanted partner but that didn’t go so well unfortunately.
More success for Gaasperdam in the 4 category. Rosa played mixed doubles with me and we knew we would face Richard and Pauline from BC Barneveld early in the tournament already. It’s a joy to watch them play but it’s not so much fun when you are on the other side of the net facing them. We did put up a fight though, survived a match point in the 2nd game but ultimately had to accept they were the better couple in the 3rd game. In the singles I managed to make my way to the finals. My team mate Rosa didn’t believe it at all and Jeroen van Rooij had to come over to actually see I was not lying! But unfortunately I had to play Richard again. It was his 10th match of the day, and because he was so tired I felt I had a chance but in the end he gave me no chance at all in the 3rd game. Rosa alongside her sister Melissa aka The Bulldozers rampaged through the group stage in the ladies doubles by destroying their opponents with smashes most men would dream of. In the finals our girls faced Pauline again but this time the Hondeman ladies pulled it off in a 3 game victory! Revenge accomplished! Rosa also played strongly in her singles but unfortunately for her she met our mud master Sandra in the semi-finals. First game was super exciting, with game points for Rosa but ultimately victory for Sandra. Rosa couldn’t maintain her high level in the 2nd game anymore and Sandra as usual only gets better as the game progresses so Sandra secured victory and in the end won the tournament!
So we ended with victory in the ladies single and doubles in 4 category and a second place for me in men’s single. Tournament was a lot of fun, the tournament did suffer from slight delay bit but after watching videos of the tournaments leads doing some dancing all day it’s not surprising! But all in all well organized, really nice apples, and we are looking forward to participating again next year!
Korneel.
