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Friday, July 5, 2019

Jai Alai/Cesta Punta--Cesta Punta Pro Tour Internationaux Cesta Punta--St. Jean de Luz (Donibane Lohizune) Begins with a play-in Tournament

The Cesta Punta Pro Tour's premier competition, Internationaux Cesta Punta, played at St.Jean de Luz (1) (2) runs from July 2-August 29, 2019. It began with a play in Tournament to determine a "wild card" avant (front) and arriere (back) who would join the field for a 4 tournament competition that would determine the players in a 5th "SLAM" Tournament, a champion of Champions Tournament. All Tournaments will be played on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Live video coverage, as well as on demand video replays by the French TV network Canal + will be available at the Internationaux Cesta Punta Youtube site.


The schedule in a nutshell (on a single page) (Cestapunta Facebook)

Matches will be played in sets, two to 15 points. Tie breaker will be to 5. 5 pasas (over serves) will be allowed in the course of a match. More than that, as well as any under serve, will result in a fault.

Note: the cumulative records of all players in these tournaments will be kept at the bottom of each Tournament blog post.

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Play in Tournament 





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Play in Tournament

FINAL

July 4, 2019

(15-7, 15-5) (30-12) (St. Jean de Luz Cesta Punta Youtube)

Partial scoring

2nd set only (SJDL CP Youtube)

Hormatxea +6 -1; T. Basque +0 -0
Ithurria +2 -4 D. Ourthe +0 -5
Scoring adds to 15-3

Hormatxea (avant-front) and T. Basque (arriere) advance into the roster for the upcoming tournaments. Hormatxea's next match is scheduled to be in Master 2, with Lekerika v Egiguren and T. Basque.

Match article (cestapunta.com) 

This was an unfortunate way to end the tournament. As was hinted at by the match article about the semi-finals, which commented that they seemed to sleep walk through the 2nd set (9-15) before coming back to win, it was always going to be difficult for Ithurria and Portet to survive 2 matches in 3 days after flying to Iparralde (North Basque Country) from Dania Beach Florida and Mexico City respectively. They then had 2 days to prepare. And the task was made even more difficult when Portet had to miss this match with an injury. He was replaced by Daniel Ourthe, a 22 year old promising amateur, but a bit out of his depth, as well as having to come in on short notice. The result was predictable, a dominating win by H-B. Their opponents scored only 12 points in the match. It was also unfortunate in that Ithurria, coming in off an excellent season as a late front at Dania, had his partido season end (?--one never knows, he may show up later as a substitute, either here or in the Hegoalde (South Basque) Jai Alai World Tour) before it could really begin. We  hope to see more of him somewhere this summer. H-B could only play the opponents on the concha and this they did, easily moving on. 

Semi-finals

July 2, 2019

(15-14, 9-15, 5-3) (34-27) (St. Jean de Luz Cesta Punta Youtube) (set scores corrected July 5, 2019)

Selected linescore (winners always listed first) (cestapunta.com)

1st set

12-12; 12-14; 15-14

Tie breaker

4-1; 4-3; 5-3

Julien Ihitsague, also probably jet lagged after flying in from Mexico City, had this match end precisely as his Fronton Mexico National League Final match ended 2 nights before, with a dropped catch to end a tie-breaker. Ihitsague is a fine player who was a workhorse in Mexico City, and obviously played very well there, coming back from a leg injury suffered when hit by a pelota during a match, to advance to the Final. If you want to know how cruel a game Cesta Punta can be, just ask him.

(15-14, 13-15, 5-4) (33-33) (St. Jean de Luz Cesta Punta Youtube)

Selected linescore (winners always listed first)

Tie breaker:

0-2; 2-2; 2-3; 3-3; 3-4; 5-4

Partial scoring (ICP Youtube)

2nd set only

Hormatxea +7 (including 1 service ace) -3; T. Basque +0 -5
J.Tambourindeguy +7 -2; Urtasun +0 -4

With their backs to the wall in the tie breaker, a Hormatxea chula (directly following an attempted two wall he threw off the concha) and T. Basque passing shot won for H-B.


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Overall ICP record

Key: match w-l; set w-l --(.3=tie breaker), Ts won

P=Play in; M1, M2, M3, M4=Master 1-4; S=SLAM

Avants (fronts)

Hormaetxea; 2-0; 3.3-1; P
Ithurria; 1-1; 1.3-2
Lesbats; 0-1; 1-1.3
J. Tambourindeguy; 0-1; 1-1.3

Arrieres (backs)

T. Basque; 2-0; 3.3-1; P
Portet; 1-0; 1.3-1
(Manex) Urtasun; 0-1; 1-1.3
Ihitsague; 0-1; 1-1.3
D. Ourthe 0-1 0-2