Having brought just one orange shirt for three matches on the Squash World Tour 2018 with me, first of all I had to get creative. Drying it on the car seats while drinking coffee in the Luft Bar in Maribor didn’t work and the whole car was smelling by now. Even the perfume of my awesome fan support didn’t help much… Sorry!
Fortunately there is a horizontally closing window in this bus which I used to tuck in the shirt.
In Graz our first stop was the outdoors warm up at Kunsthalle. I got not-so-nice feedback for our groups’ smell from some strangers. So I took the painful decision to wear my red shirt for the match, out of fairness for #teamyellow.
Our squash location of choice (and of a lot of strong players apparently) was the Squash Dome. They provide the only permanent glass court in Austria, actually it’s the one we played in Vienna last year, reassembled. So I had good memories and physically I felt better than ever. At least better than #teamyellow looked like 🙂 two intense matches had left some scars…
The glass court allows for a different style of play, the ball bounces less off the wall, making the strokes shorter, but it bounces more off the ground. So naturally the rallies became longer and more intense. A battle for body and mind. Epic!
In the first game nobody could establish a clear lead. I honestly can’t remember if or how many game points I had, but #teamyellow finally took the game 15:13, celebrating it with a loud roar.
The longer rallies and shorter strokes also lead to an increase of lets and strokes and some heated discussions around them. Fortunately we had our video referee – but it was still not always easy to agree.
The second game was as close as the first one, Peter had a 10:9 lead, but this time #teamorange fought back, took the game 12:10 and equalized in games.
More heated arguments and really nice rallies also attracted a small crowd, while we fought for the third game. Again #teamyellow had 2 game points. Again #teamorange fought back and took the game 14:12.
Now being on fire, I started pretty well into the 4th game, culminating in a 10:7 lead. Somehow though, #teamyellow didn’t think it was over and once again mobilized his last power reserves. He equalized 10:10 and then had game point at 12:11. Again this proofed to not be enough to beat #teamorange. I took the game 15:13 and with it the match and a 2:1 lead on the Squash World Tour 2018.
Detail: #teamorange prolonged his victory streak on glass courts and remains unbeaten!
After the intense battle a local #teamorange supporter asked for a little battle. Of course it’s not possible to say no, even though I was done. To make it short: #teamorange beats #teamorange.
Usually I don’t report stories from the locker room. But in this case I have to. #teamyellow refused the (yellow) shower gel offered by #teamorange to use some shampoo (for kids) he found 3 showers further.
While putting on our clothes a kid comes in, desperately searching for something. He quickly realized somebody had used his shampoo and was really frustrated, shouting the news at his father. Rightly so! #teamyellow clearly overstepped the boundary 😉
To celebrate the victory in the healthiest way possible, we had our dinner at a vegan restaurant – the price didn’t matter to me today 😉
I want to thank Yuliya for her support, organizing the local fans to support team orange. Furthermore, #teamyellow organized this trip perfectly and I want also to thank Honey Badger for the awesome social media work she did!