13.11.25
Match Report – Nyon vs Rolle – 5-5
A super night out in Nyon for our visitors from the small satellite village of Rolle, Nyon’s smaller but equally pretty brother, with its castle, lakeside promenade and mediocre pubs (Fish and Cactus v Churchill and Blackbird, victory Nyon). The strong Rolle team, represented by Matthieu, Clement, and Lucas, definitely had the advantage of age, beauty, and functioning limbs. In contrast, Nyon had, as usual, 1 Leg Walsh, Boris (I need to work on my cardio), and Nicolas (who did not know where he was or what time it was due to child-induced sleep disturbances).
Round 1, Nyon 1-2 Rolle, as Rolle Steam”rolle”d (sorry sorry) over Boris and Nicolas with victories for Lucas and Clement. Roboknee was functional enough for Stephen to take out Matthieu with craftiness proving mightier than age, fitness, and form.
Round 2 (inc doubles), Nyon 2-5 Rolle, with our AI predicting a Rolle victory at this point with a probability of 99.99999999% Nicolas at this stage had the visage of a man for whom the prospect of sleep was much more attractive than the prospect of playing any more table tennis. Still, Boris was showing signs of uprising as he played a sharp match against Clement. Stephen provided our only point as he scraped by against Lucas in a 5-setter (side note, how is Lucas a D3? How? How? ELO fail)
Round 3, the rebirth, a star is born.
Boris. He roars, Boris he bites, Boris his forehand, it’s no longer sh*te. Poor Matthieu did not know what to make of the guttural yell, the fist pumping, and the scream – and this was just in the warmup. Sufficient damage was done to the psyche to see Boris breathe his way karmically to a serene 3-2 victory.
Nicolas, meanwhile, realized the quicker he won a match, the quicker he’d get to sleep. 3-0 versus Lucas, a very solid finale.
Old one leg, peggy, the redundant Robocop, the man with less cartilage than a desiccated corpse, was once again dragged kicking and screaming into a 5-setter. Why win in 3 sets when you can throw away the third set, sulk for the entirety of the 4th set, and then wake up briefly for the 5th set? With that, a most unlikely draw was secured; team Rolle was left shellacked, distraught, and devastated. A very, very tasty beer to celebrate in our new favorite post-match venue, Bowling Restaurant Signy by Boris and Stephen, as Nicolas had fallen asleep on the floor mats at the back of the gym an hour earlier.
Teacher’s pet – Stephen for 3-3 (even though AI was predicting otherwise)
Bonus award – Boris and Nicolas for pulling it out of the fire, better late than never, boys.
Actual learning – last two matches against Tram and Rolle have shown that league IV is no joke, some seriously solid players, and a very high quality is being observed overall….kudos to everyone.