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Saturday, July 20, 2019

Jai Alai/Cesta Punta--Cesta Punta Pro Tour Internationaux Cesta Punta--St. Jean de Luz (Donibane Lohizune) Master 1 Tournament

The Cesta Punta Pro Tour's premier competition, St. Jean de Luz 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 St. Jean de Luz 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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Master 1 




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INJURY REPORT:

Jerome Portet (back) suffered an arm injury in practice before his play-in Final in the Internationaux Cesta Punta, Cesta Punta World Tour match. He missed that match. When he will return is unknown.

Note: to follow this tournament in  chronological order, read from the bottom up.

Master 1

July 16, 2019

FINAL

Olha-Lopez 2 (Aritz) Erkiaga-Minvielle 0
(15-12, 15-14) (30-26) (Canal + via St. Jean de Luz Cesta Punta Youtube)

Set 2: 7-7--8-7; 30 balls in play, the longest point of the match (Canal + via St. Jean de Luz Cesta Punta Facebook)

Set 1 Condensed Linescore (Canal +) (winners always listed first)

4-0; 4-2; 5-2; 5-4; 6-4; 6-5; 10-5; 10-6; 11-6; 11-9; 12-9; 12-11; 13-11; 13-12; 15-12

Partial scoring (Canal +)

Olha +3 -2; (26 balls in play)
(Aritz) Erkiaga +8 -2; (51 balls in play)

My scoring

Olha +3 -4; Lopez +7 -0
(Aritz) Erkiaga +8 -3; Minvielle +0 -2

Set 2: My scoring

Olha +5 -0; Lopez +1 -1
(Aritz) Erkiaga +12 -4; Minvielle +1 -5

For the match:

Olha +8 -4; Lopez +8 -1
(Aritz) Erkiaga +20 -7; Minvielle +1 -7

Balls in Play: 392; Set 1: 194; Set 2: 198

Time of the match: 66:02

Note on Canal + scoring. Canal +, in the publicly available video, only showed cumulative scoring for the first set, and only for the fronts in that set. They also provided partial balls in play data (fronts only). I did my own scoring because my methods are different from Canal +. Canal plus gave hardly any scoring information on back court players. They also did not credit a winner when the front court receiver intercepted the serve and immediately converted the point. My scoring model is EITB, which does hundreds of BP matches in various modalities. The rule of their scoring is that Team A's winners + Team B's errors always equals the Team A's total score.Same for Team B. This is not the case for Canal +, but I decided to provide any information they gave about the scoring of the match. Canal+ also has a different way of counting balls in a point than EITB does. With EITB, the winners' number of total balls in play is always equal to or within 1 of the difference in match points. Canal Plus does not count this way, and their total counts do not bear this relationship. I do not understand how they count points. EITB's method is much more intuitive, in my opinion, and helps to make what happened in the match more understandable. All of my scoring judgments are mine alone. Yours may be different.

Match article (cestapunta.com) 

Steady and effective play by O-L (9 less errors than E-M overcame an awesome offensive display by Erkiaga--more winners than the other 3 players combined), as O-L prevailed in 2 very close sets to win Master 1. They established an early lead in Set 1 and never relinquished it. Lopez had a great offensive set. His defense is very well known to anyone who has watched him, and he had an excellent season at Fronton Mexico before coming back to the Basque Country for the Summer Partidos. In this set he had cortada winners from the 9-10 line, the 12 line, and an overhead pass from the 11 line to finish the set. But the most impressive throw, in my opinion, was the backhand rebote (rebound) save he made on the 9-5--10-5 point, which he immediately converted into a two wall (left-front) winner from the 12-13. To make the save he had to cross the concha from left to right while angling back, and pick the rebote. It was the catch-throw of the match. (27:01-27:52 on the video). Erkiaga began the match with 2 errors in the 1st 4 points, and 3 in the first 12, but after that he found his game. From the 15th point to the last (27th), he contributed 5 winners (including 3 consecutive and 4 of 5, cutting the deficit from 10-5 to 11-9. But it wasn't enough, as 2 winners apiece by Olha and Lopez put the set away.

The 2nd set began with 3 consecutive Erkiaga winners following a Minvielle error to give E-M their biggest lead of the day. At that point Olha came to the party, contributing all of his 5 winners (dejada, 2 two walls, chic chac, and left wall rebote) to help O-L to tie the set at 9. The chic chac ended the longest point of the match, 30 balls in play (see the video link above). There were 7 errors from that point to the end, unfortunately 4 by Minvielle. Lopez wasn't the offensive force in this set as he was in the first, but he played rock solid defense, his only error of the match a difficult dropped catch that tied the set at 10. Erkiaga was involved in the last 5 scoring decisions of the match, 3 of which were winners. The first error came on a controversial call with the set tied at 13. He made a wonderful catch of a late left wall carom but was ruled to have juggled the catch. His body language, as well as Olha's cesta tap on the shoulder indicated the closeness of the call. Then Erkiaga made his poorest play of the match on the set finishing point, throwing a two wall winner off the court.

Olha, although he played an excellent overall game, had difficulty getting serves past Erkiaga. Erikaga intercepted 6 serves in the 2nd set and turned them into immediate winners with 3 two walls, 2 chic chacs, and a dejada. His aggressive play rattled Olha, but not enough.   

July 11, 2019

2nd Semi-final

(Aritz) Erkiaga-Minvielle 2
P. Tambourindeguy-Etcheto 1 (Canal + via St. Jean de Luz Cesta Punta Youtube)
(4-15, 15-6, 5-2) (24-23)

Condensed linescore (match winners always listed first) (Canal +)

Set 1:

0-2; 2-2; 2-3; 3-3; 3-14; (Erkiaga 4 consecutive errors) 4-14; 4-15

Set 2:

2-0; 2-1; 5-1; 5-2; 9-2; (Etcheto 3 consecutive errors); 9-4; 12-4; 12-6; 15-6

3-1--4-1: Tambourindeguy makes the play of the match, climbing the protective netting to save an Erkiaga two wall winner. Erkiaga takes the save and wins the point with a dejada.

Tie Breaker

0-1; 1-1; 1-2; 5-2 (at 1-2, dropped catches by Tambourindeguy and Etcheto sandwich a brilliant ace by Erkiaga and Minvielle's only winner of the match, a perfectly placed outside pass from the 14).

Scoring

Set 1 (my scoring--Canal +'s does not come anywhere close to adding up to the score); balls in play breakdown source: Canal +. Note: my scoring has now changed with respect to "service aces." Canal + calls a 1 ball point that was dropped or thrown away by the receiver an error, so I will also. Set 2 and tie breaker: Canal + did not provide any scoring, so it is mine alone.

Set 1:

(Aritz) Erkiaga +1 -8; Minvielle +0 -1
P. Tambourindeguy +5 -0; Etcheto +1 -3

Set 2:

(Aritz) Erkiaga +6 -3; Minvielle +0 -1
P. Tambourindeguy + 1 -4; Etcheto +1 -5

Tie breaker:

(Aritz) Erkiaga +2 (including 1 service ace) -0; Minvielle +1 -0
P. Tambourindeguy +2 -1; Etcheto +0 -1

For the match:

(Aritz) Erkiaga +9 -11; Minvielle +1 -2
P. Tambourindeguy +8 -5; Etcheto + 2 -9

Balls in play 295:

Set 1: 107: Erkiaga 22 Minvielle 31; P. Tambourindeguy 27 Etcheto 27

Note: I have no idea how Canal + counts balls. When a team wins by 11 points but has only 1 more bip than the other team, it is a counting system that is different from any I've seen. My own ball count was 117, but I present theirs because it is there on TV, and it does give some idea of how the work was divided. 

Set 2: 145; Tie breaker; 43

Time of the match: 53:22

This was one of the strangest 3 set matches you'll see. The teams exchanged blowouts before E-M took control, winning the last 4 points of the tie breaker. The 27 match errors accounted for 57% of the match points. Erkiaga began the match with +1 -8, but was +9 -11 when it was over, including a decisive +2 -0 in the tie breaker.

Interesting note: There was only 1 over serve (pasa) in the entire match, very different from the 11 in the first Semi-final.

July 9, 2019

1st Semi-Final

Olha-Lopez 2 (Diego) Beaskoetxea-Ekhi 0 (Canal + via St. Jean de Luz Cesta Punta Youtube)
(15-14, 15-14) (30-28)

Condensed linescore (match winners always listed first)

Set 1:

4-0; 4-1; 5-1; 5-2; 7-2; 7-3; 8-3; 8-7; 10-7; 10-11; 12-11; 12-13; 13-13; 13-14; 15-14

5 lead changes, 5 equal scores

Set 2:

1-0; 1-3; 6-36-6; 7-6; 7-7; 9-7; 9-9; 10-9; 10-10; 11-10; 11-11; 12-11; 12-12; 13-12; 13-13; 14-13;14-14; 15-14

2 lead changes, 10 equal scores

For the match: 7 lead changes, 15 equal scores

Scoring (my judgments, Canal + scoring made no sense to me, it didn't come even close to adding to the final score)

Set 1:

Olha +7 -3 Lopez +3 -3
(Diego) Beaskoetxea +6 -0 Ekhi +2 -5

Set 2:

Olha +6 -2; Lopez +5 -1
(Diego) Beaskoetxea +7 -2; Ekhi +4 -2

For the match:

Olha +13 -5 (including 2 service faults--1 was an over serve for his 6th Pasa--5 over serves are allowed, the other was an under serve, all under serves are immediate faults)

Lopez +8 -4

(Diego) Beaskoetxea +13 -2; Ekhi +6 -7

Balls in play: 1st set 157 (Canal +) 2nd set 184 (my count) 1st set: Olha 26, Lopez 54; Diego 28, Ekhi 49 (Canal +) No splits for 2nd set BIP

Time of the match 70:55

Match article (cestapunta.com)

The first semi-final was an exciting "nail biter" from start to finish, with 7 lead changes and 15 equal scores. Both forwards had great matches with +13 apiece. O-L gained their decisive edge in the back, where Lopez' net was 5 more than Ekhi's. It was enough, barely.

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Current CPWT ranking (through Master 1, July 16)

Cumulative record (match wins-losses, set w-l (.3 for tie breaker win), Tournaments won). Current through Master 1

P=Play inM1, M2, M3, M4=Master 1-4; S=SLAM

Avants

Olha 2-0; 4-0; M1
Hormaetxea; 2-0; 3.3-1; P
Ithurria; 1-1; 1.3-2
(Aritz) Erkiaga 1-1; 1.3-3
Lesbats; 0-1; 1-1.3
J. Tambourindeguy 0-1; 1-1.3
P. Tambourindeguy 0-1; 1-1.3
(Diego) Beaskoetxea 0-1; 0-2

Arrieres

Lopez; 2-0; 4-0; M1
T. Basque; 2-0; 3.3-1; P
Portet; 1-0; 1.3-1
Minvielle 1-1; 1.3-3
(Manex) Urtasun; 0-1; 1-1.3
Etcheto 0-1; 1-1.3
Ihitsague; 0-1; 1-1.3
Ekhi; 0-1; 0-2
D. Ourthe; 0-1; 0-2

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Overall ICP record: Through Play In Tournament

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