Monthly tournament

26 March 2008

After 14 tournaments, Marc finally managed to get rid of the last bugs in his computer program. For the first time, throughout the March tournament, the team selection was as he had planned it. Unsurprisingly, Marc could celebrate his return to competitive volleyball after a back injury with a victory.

In the first two rounds, the teams in both games turned out to be unevenly matched. All games finished with big margins (21-9 or 21-11) and those unfortunate enough to end up in a losing team were out of the running early on. Only five players were part of a winning team in both rounds: Mohammed, Dominika, Gabriele, Louis, and Marc. And it was clear that the same five were to decide among themselves who was going to walk away victorious.

The games in the third and fourth round were much closer. Before the final round, Mohammed was in the lead with one point more than Dominika, Gab and Marc. Louis was in fifth place, six points further back, but he was playing in the same team as Dominika in the final round and thus couldn't win anymore. Marc played against Mohammed on one court, and Dominika against Gab on the other court. With the help from Louis (and Pete, Marta and Simon) Dominika managed to beat Gab's team by 21-18. But that was not enough, because Marc's team beat Mohammed's team by 21-14. 

Alan couldn't really build on the second places he reached in the January and February tournaments. This time he won only one game and finished in 21st place. In the overall standings he has now dropped to eighth place. Quite a few of the players above him haven't played in more than half of the games, which means that there are actually only three players above him. Neil is still in the lead, just above Gabriele, with Guillem in third place. Both Neil and Guillem have missed a fair number of tournaments so they will have to turn up in the April and May tournaments to secure their place in the final rankings.

Dominika made the biggest jump, from 26th to 17th, while Marc at least gave himself the opportunity to not end up in last place at the end of the season. Eric had a bad night and dropped from 8th to 16th place, but the differences are very small in the middle of the table. Dominika is now the surprise leader in the girls' table. She is facing stiff competition from both Deirdre and Julia. With both Ingrid and Marta only just short of the required number of games, this one is likely to be decided in the final tournament.

The next tournament is on the 30th of April.