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Big Badaboom in Sestroretsk
Thursday, 27 August 2015 11:11

Big Badaboom in Sestroretsk

Recently Russian city Sestroretsk hosted 2 international tournaments G4, organized by the l Cocco Beach Tennis Club. We tried to find out from the participants the most interesting details about how they enjoyed the events.

Daria ZheludchenkoBronze medalist of the tournament Daria Zheludchenko shared her opinion:

"It was good tournament, and it was very nice to have not only russian participants. The organization is good, thanks for the Sergey Mikhailovsky, Vasiliy Belevantsev and Evgeniy Lyubskiy. And of course thanks to my partner Kate Shmeleva. The place was gorgeous and the weather was also good, was a little bit windy, but nice. I wish we have more such a nice tournaments here in Saint Petersburg!»

«I like to play abroad, because there are a lot of players from different countries. And I love to communicate with participants and learn something new. Talking about next tournaments I haven’t decided yet. I have to study, so I’m not sure about my schedule. Of course I will try to combine school and beach tennis, because I truly fell in love with this sport!", - tells Dasha.

Yaroslav KorotchenkoFinalist of Sestroretsk G4 tournament Yaroslav Korotchenko said:

"Many thanks to Cocco BT Club, which organized 4 ITF tournaments and many other activities during the summer. Talking about Sestroretsk, we can say that Estonia has won over Russia. The first tournament I played with a good friend Andrey Yakovlev. It was the first time when he played BT. The tournament was not such a great for us, but consolation part didn’t let us go without reward. I want to note that doubles Iskra-Novikov showed a good game and really deserved to reach the finals. The second tournament for me was much more serious, I played with my partner Dmitry Iskra, so we had one goal – victory! I think that you have to play aggressive from the first rounds to come into the main matches in a good shape. We had difficult semi-final, which we won in the third set, and then we lost to Estonians in the finals.

The girl draw ran smoothly: 1- and 2- seeded reached the finals in both tournaments, where they tried to found out who is stronger. In the first tournament Stepanova-Naumova won, and in the second -Glimakova-Klyueva, so the score 1-1.

I enjoyed the game, it was nice to play semi-final and final matches, feeling the support of the audience. Of course, this is not Aruba and not the World Champ, but here in St. Petersburg we always create our own special atmosphere."

Irina GlimakovaThe winner of the second tournament in Sestroretsk and the member of Russian national team Irina Glimakova said:

"Tournaments in Sestroretsk are always held in a friendly and warm atmosphere. It’s a pleasure to play these tournaments! And by results "Sestroretsk resort" is lucky for me. First Friday tournament with my partner by Anastasia Klyueva failed to win, but I think we had an interesting match. The tournament on Saturday was like a revenge. We note our mistakes and were able to win the Sestroretsk! (in 4th attempt) :) Right now I have no tournaments plans, I’m going to wait for the return of Julie Chubarova from Japan and together we will decide where to go next".

Nataly GogonovaThe participant of both tournaments Nataly Gogonova commented:

«We didn't count, but last weekend we were able to catch the St. Petersburg summer on the courts during the two tournaments Badaboom. The event were held in a beautiful place in Sestroretsk. I did not play great, but had the opportunity to spend the night on the tent, try evening barbecues, starry sky (which is not impossible in the big city), rise early with the sound of the tractor, making our courts and have breakfast with views of the Bay with a great company!

I would like to note the excellent organization of the tournament by Cocco BT Club, there was water and fruits for participants. Also there were consolation games for those, who didn’t pass the first round, so we could play BT a lot. And it was very nice to get a special medals even for the winners of the consolation tournament. Thank to Olesya Soldatenko for partnership".

Priit PihlEstonian Priit Pihl also shared to btrussia.com with his experience of playing BT in Russia :

«My experiences with Russia come from beach tennis tournaments in SPB and the world team championships in Moscow, and both of those cities are big and nice. I haven't been in other places, but as far as those cities, I've had a good experience. The same goes about BT in Russia, all the tournaments have been well organized and well run, so only positives there, especially the world team
championships, which was a greatly organized and a great experience. I think BT in Russia is doing good, and the recent results in big tournaments show it. Also, it seems that more people are starting to play the game, and the overall level is getting better. The next step would be the keep finding and developing high level players who can get to top 100, top 50 in the world, and compete for the spots in the national team. Russia came very close to beating Italy in the world team champs, but while Russia has 7 players in the world top 100, Italy has 34. So adding more depth to the top would be a next step if we are talking about high performance game. But seems that you're on the right track».

«The tournaments in Sestroretsk we're nice, the beach was good, weather was good, and organization ran smoothly. I guess when a player of my level is seeded first in a tournament, you cannot call it a very strong tournament. But for us, the level of the tournament was good, since, even though we were able to win them, most of our matches were not easy. We hadn't played a tournament for a month, so the first tournament we were little rusty, but luckily we got through both of our 3 set matches. In the second tournament we played little better and we ended up not losing a set, but most of those sets were really close. So definitely not easy wins for us. Bt in Estonia is quite small, it's mainly being played in two cities: Viljandi and Tartu, because there are luckily some enthusiastic people who run tournaments, etc. And also these are the only places with indoor courts, 1 in Viljandi and 2 close to Tartu. Few people are also playing in Tallinn, the capital and biggest city in Estonia, which would be a great market for the sport, but right now there's now indoor courts there, so it's just a summer hobby for some people. We have one player who is trying to break into the higher levels of the game, Anelle Luik, whose ranked 41 in women's ITF ranking. The rest of the women and men are just amateurs who mostly play for fun. About tournaments....we don't have any dates set for the rest of the 2015 and 2016, but I think we are going to have 2 indoor G4 tournaments in Estonia, one in November and one in March, and then about 3 tournaments in the summer, 2 in Viljandi in June one of them possibly G3, and one in July in Parnu, which is a nice beach town».

 

Reporter btrussia.com Ekaterina Bobkova

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