Amsterdam Champions Race January 2010

After New Year celebrations with my family in Holland, I received this email:

Your official invite to the GLTA Championships in Amsterdam.
Congratulations Peter,
You are officially invited to play in the GLTA Champions Race (singles D) in Amsterdam.
Please let us know if you can attend at the Champions Race finals.
If you can't play, please let us know as well. We will then invite the next on the list.
Can you please respond soon, because otherwise we need to move on to the next on the list.
Hopefully looking forward seeing you in Amsterdam in January
Kind regards
Hein Jan Lapidaire
GLTA Commissioner.

Needless to say I replied straight away confirming my presence. Great start of 2010!

Also, because of a late cancellation, I was asked to play in D-doubles as well, which I gladly accepted.

The updated draw shows I am seeded 6th in D-singles, and I am in Group B:

http://glta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/event.aspx?id=96892D6B-9852-4796-9489-0DAF420C85E1&event=9

First Singles match was against Joan, again...

Unfortunately I lost, after a long, tight match, in 3 hours: 7-6, 4-6, 4-6.

Next match was against the lovely Brian from Chicago. In a strange, 2-hour long match, I eventually won
6-4, 0-6, 6-1:

After this, it was Doubles time: playing 3 matches with the same 4 people, so with 3 alternate partners:
First match was with Joe from Florida, who's partner Bruce was here with him (!), against fellow Americans Randal and Brian:

Joe and I were leading, but we could not finish our match, as time was up...

Next day, last group match in Singles, against good friend Tony Pham, who I met in last year's Champions Race Tournament in Hollywood:

Tony was too good for me, but it was a lovely match: 3-6, 2-6. No semi-finals for me this year.
But later on, it was Doubles time again:
Joe and I finished our first match, winning 6-4, 6-3.
Straight after, it was Brian & me against Joe & Randal: we lost 3-6, 4-6.
And like true die hards, we played our last group match as well.
This time it was Randal & me against Joe & Brian. We lost 5-7, 3-6.

Everything wa splayed in good spirit. It was then cruel, that Randal, Brian and me all ended in 2nd place, with the same amount of sets won and lost! So, our names went into the hat, and Brian was the lucky one to proceed to the Doubles Final.
In that final, he and fellow American Kevin beat Joe & Tony Pham to take home the D- Doubles Winners' Trophy!

The GLTA Awards Ceremony also signalled the goodbye of Hein Jan as GLTA board member.
Here is a photo of the GLTA board:

During the ceremony, all qualified players were honoured:

And here is my Certificate of Excellence:

Poor Tony Pham lost the D-Singles Final, against Chrisian Kuster: Tony's second lost Champions Race Final in a row, but he does win the price for the nicest guy.

Here are my results in D-singles:
http://glta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draw.aspx?id=96892D6B-9852-4796-9489-0DAF420C85E1&draw=14

And my results in D-Doubles:

http://glta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/player.aspx?id=96892D6B-9852-4796-9489-0DAF420C85E1&player=229

My stats for these Championships:

http://glta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/player.aspx?id=96892D6B-9852-4796-9489-0DAF420C85E1&player=229