From 20th to 29th June I together with female players of my club Zdenka Svedova, Martina Benesova and my coach Radek Votava left for a training camp in the northern part of our country. We spent 10 days with lot of physical training (mostly agility and strength) and we added some playing as well. These days were the very first part of our preparation for the new season. The training facilities for us were provided by Dukla – that is a Czech Army Sports Centre and also probably the biggest sports supporting system in my country. I am happy about being a member of this programme.

In summer we are usually only training, but the first week of July offered an interesting tournament. The White Nights International Challenge in Gatchina, Russia (not far from St. Petersburg) looked promising. In case of an acceptable draw there was a chance of winning some nice points for the world ranking. And I was lucky, in the 1st round I played against a very young Russian called Ilias Hishanlo and I won 21:9, 21:18. In the 2nd round I played against another young player, this time from Finland. Although I won the first set against Santtu Hyvärinen, my situation became more complicated as I lost the second set and in the third one I had to fight until the very end where I eventually won 21:19 and therefore moved in the last 16.

I didn´t have a bad draw for the next round either but against the Canadian Stephan Wojcikiewicz I eventually lost in 3 sets. 13:21, 21:18 and 16:21. The first set was a lot about my own mistakes. Then in the 2nd one I played better and managed to take the game. But in the 3rd set I began badly and after a couple of minutes I was loosing 4:12 or even more and although I was trying to get back in the match I managed to revise the score only for 16:21. But still, the decision to go to Russia proved itself to be a good one as an eighthfinal at an international challenge tournament is not bad.

PHOTOGALLERY FROM THE TRAINING CAMP IN LIBEREC

RESULTS FROM THE RUSSIAN WHITE NIGHTS INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGE

Greetings,

Pavel Florian

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