After the last tournament of the 2007/2008 Olympic Qualification in Holland there was no other until after 3 weeks the International Series in Lendava, Slovenia. As the spring wasn´t very good for me when I was struggling to win a match at any BWF ranked tournament since November, this was kind of a breakthrough. I had a best tournament of my life so far and I finished as a runner-up.

After beating Stepan Yaroslavtsev of Russia 21:12, 21:14, Krasimir Yankov of Bulgaria 21:14, 21:17, Iztok Utroša 17:21, 21:13, 22:20 and Miha Šepec jr. 13:21, 23:21, 21:9 (both from Slovenia) – anyway Šepec had 2 matchpoints on me in the 2nd set - I fought my way through to the final. There I met another Czech player Jan Vondra, who was the top seed of the tournament. I played my best badminton of the whole weekend but from 18:18 in the 1st game I lost 18:21 and from 20:17 (I had three gamepoints) I lost 21:23. I believe that if we went in 3 sets I could have won the match as my opponent was already tired but I will never now that … So 2130 points for the worldranking, my best result!

After coming home I had a day off the training and on Tuesday I moved to Linz, Austria where I had some good training with Jürgen Koch and also Peter Zauner and Michi Lahnsteiner. From Linz I flew directly to Madrid for another tournament. Spanish International Challenge – but I had to play qualification.

On Thursday afternoon I played 3 matches. 1st rnd – Martin Faaborg Jensen (DEN) 21:17, 21:15, 2nd Hallstein Oma (NOR) 21:14, 18:21, 21:14 and in the qualyfing final I won 21:19, 21:16 against Simon Knutsson of Sweden. This was a good win for me as I lost to this opponent about a year ago and I was also quite happy as I was in the main draw now. In the first and unfortunately last round I lost to a German Sven-Eric Kastens. I lost the first and very tight game 21:23 and the second, rather less concentrated one 16:21. I could feel I was a bit tired after the previous day but more importantly I couldn´t deliver the same performance as in the previous matches. Though 920 points were not bad, I knew I would move a bit higher in the world ranking again. (118th place)

3rd week, 3rd tournament. Le Volant d´Or de Toulouse – I like this one. The organisation is great and the people are very friendly there. Last year I finished 9th in France and I had to defend this result. The draw for the 1st round was OK as I played against a Frech player Julien Tchoryk but my performance was not OK. I managed to win in 3 sets, 21:15, 9:21 and 21:15 but the 2nd set was very bad and the 3rd one wasn´t anything nice but a simple fight. So I won J and could enjoy the 2nd round against the later winner Andre Kuriawan Tedjono of Indonesia. It was very hard to play against such a fast and physically strong player who already to beat such players as Wong Chong Hann. I lost 13:21 and 11:21 – thank God I played much better than in my 1st match and could take some useful things from this game.

Results from the tournaments:

Nafta Slovenia International Series 2008

Spanish Open International Challenge 2008

Le Volant d´Or de Toulouse IC 2008

Regards,

Pavel Florian

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