BROADGATE ROUNDUP                  Say it with a French Accent from Broadgate
Framboise Gommendy reports

Final:
Thierry Lincou (Fra) bt Joe Kneipp (Aus)
 
     10/11 (0-2), 11/9, 11/2, 11/1 (58m)


TOUT EN CONTRÔLE
Again, no translation needed, I hope …

I didn’t want to be here today, but when Thierry reached the finals, I had the feeling that today could be the day, and that I had to come.

Thierry has been around for a few years now. In January, he became the World Number 1, the first Frenchman to get to that pole position. But some people didn’t take him THAT seriously because although he had won 9 PSA titles he had never won a Super Series Event.

And that was a huge chip on his shoulder.

As I saw the 80 minute semi-final between the tall John White and the charismatic Joe Kneipp, I thought that Joe was going to run out of steam at some point, but I would have never thought that he would run out of racquets!

The man had 3 racquets in his bag (a bit like me with my pens really, isn’t it…), he broke the strings of them all, and then was forced to borrow a Prince and ended up with a Dunlop instead of his usual KLIP.

“After losing the second game, I wasn’t worried about my fitness, but about how I was going to be able to play the final of the Super Series with someone else's racquet!” a serene Joe told me after his defeat. “And by the way, I’m sticking to Klip, no contest.”

I have to say that in the first game, I thought "that's it, he has finally lost it, the poor man," when I saw him slooooooooooowing down every shot, lobbing every ball that he was playing. “What is he doing?” I asked Mr McKenzie sitting near me. And it’s only when I saw him going off court to change his racquet that the penny dropped.

Oh, come on, French, blond, AND a woman? What do you expect????

During a very close first game, Thierry was perfectly in control, every shot was played with precision, with length, but also with caution, caution that may well have cost him the game as Joe dug in deep to win the 24 minute game 2/0 in the tie-break.

In the second, Thierry went up 4/1, then 8/2, and Joe knew that he needed to win quickly, as his fitness was probably not going to last a long match.

3/8, 4/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8. Joe was accumulating the points, and I was blowing into my hands to dry the dampness, not that I was nervous or anything.

“I knew that I couldn’t afford to lose the second,” said Thierry. “I had to take a mental ascendancy, I saw in him that he was getting tired. I also knew that I couldn’t relax, and I was still wary of him”.

Joe was playing a “le tout pour le tout”, “win or lose” kind of game, placing three beautiful returns of serve that Lincou could only watch from afar, wrong footing his opponent with a perfect length drive and also a short cross court. But Thierry’s length was too good, too precise, and as he started to relax, his game became more and more varied. The Frenchman finally won the second in 14 minutes.

And the rest was a formality, 11/2, 11/1.

In 58 minutes, Thierry Lincou won his first Super Series Event (making it his 10th PSA victory).

“In three appearances here, I've finished 2nd, 3rd and now 1st. This tournament agrees with me I think,”  Thierry told me after the final. “And it makes up for the 4 or 5 finals that I lost over the last year.”

Daniel and Céline were ecstatic; I wasn’t that unhappy about the whole thing myself, and I must admit that I couldn’t stop the tears rolling down my face.

“I’m not going to tell you how emotional we are right now, his mum and I!” said Daniel, Thierry's father. “And it’s a good consolation prize after his defeat in the semis of the PSA Masters in Qatar against Peter Nicol. And now that he has been world number one, I just hope that he will win some more big events once in a while, without having the pressure of the rankings”.

What you don’t know (and I wasn’t going to tell you, was I…), is that, right after Rennes, Thierry got very ill, and spent the 10 days between the European Team Championships and the Super Series Finals in bed. When he arrived, he had lost quite a few pounds, was very weak, and I didn’t give much for his chances in this tournament. And as is often the case, it’s when you don’t expect it that the best comes…

“I came here extremely relaxed, with no expectations at all, I didn’t have any pressure whatsoever. The presence of one of my 2 coaches, Franck Carlino, who has been my coach since I’m 14, calmed me and reassured me. I knew that Joe was going to get tired, but I didn’t expect him to let me win the last two games so easily. This is a beautiful day for me, especially to win in front of my parents and my coach.

Yes, it was a beautiful day for Thierry Lincou, for his family, his support group….

And for me.

Merci mon Thierry.

BROADGATE ROUNDUP
Framboise reflects on a week in the City


Frambois reports on
Thierry Lincou's first
major title ...

 


“I’m very happy about my week” smiled a disappointed Joe Kneipp. “I’ve played very well, I realised that my fitness was really strong, as I could see the others guys getting tired before I did. Yes, I did lose in the final, a combination of tiredness of the week, lack of racquet, and Thierry Lincou playing very well indeed. But overall, I’m over the moon.”


Framboise & Céline


Céline, Thierry &
Daniel Lincou