Yesterday was the kind of day when any sane person would have chosen to stay home. It was a blustery, cold day with biting winds approaching 20 mph. Even my cat, a known fitness fanatic, elected to forego her daily tai chi exercises in the garden and stay home.
When I arrived at the field, around a quarter to nine, there were very few people present and I wondered how many individuals would be crazy enough to show up. But little by little, they came, those magnificent bastards. Braving the elements, they trekked to our field dressed like eskimos.
Around 9:30 am Noel Marcovecchio and Christine Cragg had cobbled 14 “doublette” teams… 28 brave souls who came from the least expected places.
The tournament format was “mêlée », and I had the good luck to be paired with Holly Sammons. Everybody knows what a great player she is.
The weather being what it was, most of the people showed up with winter attires. Personally, I sported five layers of clothing, which probably made me look like the Michelin Man. But I would rather look ridiculous than shivering.
We played 2 games in the morning and 2 games in the afternoon. As usual, the winners would be determined by the number of victories and the number of points accumulated during these games.
Holly and I did well, winning our 2 morning games. As I always said, it is often the pointer who determines the outcome of the game, and Holly proved it one more time.
The wind that had been blowing full blast in the morning abetted a little bit in the afternoon and allowed us to remove some clothing. After lunch, Holly and I hit a slump and we lost one game against the very good team of Jean-Michel and Max Lofaro.
We won our last game, and around 3:00 pm we were done for the day… with 3 winning games under our belts. Not too bad.
With very little time to spare between games, I still managed to steal a few photo shots to give you an idea of the ambiance of the tournament.
I hope that you will like them.
Final results:
1st place: Mike O’Leary & Richard Bell $56.00 ea
2nd place: Jean-Michel Poulnot & Max Lofaro $42.00 ea
3rd place: Erin McTaggart & Monique Bricca $28.00 ea
4th place: Alain Efron & Holly Sammons $14.00 ea
Alain
Enjoy the pictures and don’t be shy with comments. “I can live on a good compliment two weeks with nothing else to eat.”