In the Seoul of Asia

This win meant that we played against one of the Great Britain teams who we regularly train with. We won the first set and had our chance to win in 2 sets but lost the lead, and again the set stretched out to 26-28 to take it to a 3rd set. We took the 3rd set 15-12 and believe me, the high and relief of qualifying never ever gets old. In many ways when you play in the qualifier before the main draw it can feel like two separate tournaments. It was an extremely satisfying day to end with a qualification, but my goodness we can make hard work of it sometimes:)

The next day in main draw we drew the Brazilian sisters and I did not play well which was disappointing after a close 1st set. Our next game was against a Swedish team who we played last year and lost to in a 3 setter (I see a trend happening here?!). We won the first set and things felt good and in control. A patch of errors in the second set meant that we played a 3 setter for the 3rd time in 4 games. It was neck and neck and after a slight swing in our favour at the end of the set to make it 13-14 to them, the ref made a call that made me lose it!!!!. I was called for a touch on the block that I did not make, the ball went out and the score should have been 14-14. No amount of shouting in disbelief or appealing made an ounce of difference and the ref quickly called an end to the game. I was so mad and upset that I was in tears by the time I was across the court to the score bench. I felt robbed and all the emotions of qualification the day before, then playing poorly in the morning and finding my way in the second game all hit me at once. Like many situations in life one second can have a bigger impact than an on looker would understand. If that call hadn’t been made against us, there is every possibility that we could have won that game taking us to 17th or beyond. That result was significant in our bid to get to World Champs which means a good result here in Seoul is essential but of course we are up for the challenge.

The event here is already off to a bad start for the organisers. In the weekend the former Prime Minister killed himself and this week has been a week of mourning resulting in no country quota today (for countries that have too many teams), instead it will be played tomorrow when qualification should start. So the first rounds of qualification could be very hot tomorrow at mid day? Then the organisers will squeeze more than the usual amount of main draw games into Thursday, possibly no games on Friday when the funeral is, and no televised games either. But you cant mess with politics, so everyone rolls with the punches.

For those interested you can see our results tomorrow at the following site:

http://www.fivb.org/EN/BeachVolleyball/Competitions/WorldTour/2009/beach...

Click on the "Qualification" tab on the left side of the page and the rest should be straight forward.