Au revoir et bonne nuit.

I’m here in my apartment, bags packed and ready to fly home tomorrow (tues oct 26th). The rest of the season here is pretty slow and, without any tournaments in October, I figure my time will be better spent training back in california and doing a bit of work for an old econ professor back in santa cruz. I got signed to play for a club in Beziers during May so I will be back in France in the spring. I was super excited to get the club team offer at the end of September. Colin and I got to be friends with this guy Pierre in the south after seeing him at a couple consecutive tournaments and he told me his club team is looking for a new player to fill a spot. He said I’d probably play in the middle of the 5-singles player lineup, behind him and his brother. All the clubs I had previously spoken with were only regional level teams so I was excited to find out that the club, TC Serignan, is at the National 4 level, meaning we’ll get to travel throughout france to play our 4 away matches. Colin and I never went to Beziers but I checked it out and it’s on the coast on the Mediterranean in the south and a decent sized city- definitely smaller than Paris or Montpellier though. I’ll live for the month at Pierre’s house which will be nice and free thank god. The level of the team sounds pretty good to- Pierre is a -4, his brother 0, and a couple 1/6 and 2/6 players. Matches are only on the weekend so I’m looking forward to some week trips to Cote d’azur and nearby spain with the other players on the team.

The match format is 5 singles and 2 doubles. The season consists of only 5 matches. Each club gets put into a 5 team pool within its division and each team plays all the others, making up the 5 matches. If your club wins its pool then it moves up a division for the next season. National 1 clubs are composed of players like Songa and Monfils and National 2 is made of players ranked like high atp so I feel good about finding a place on a National 4 team. Plus south france is awesome!

So my plan is to come back early spring, play some tournaments here in Paris, hopefully couching it with the friends I’ve made, and then to head down south just before May when the 1 month club season starts.

This unpredictable and roller coaster trip has come a long way and it feels a bit strange to be getting ready to board a plane for home. It’s funny to think about how Colin and I had no idea what lay ahead when we stayed up to 4am planning out our tournaments one night in Rouen. We went through some awesome contrasts- camping in pouring rain in Normandie- sleeping on the beach in the south, to living in a crowded Paris apartment with 5 other guys my age. So what do I have to show for myself- my total prize money earnings since arriving at the end of july is 635 Euros, (equaling around 850 dollars or so), some improved French skills, some improved art knowledge after a few visits to the louvre, and a lot of shared bottles of wine with colin in the south. See everyone soon back in the Golden State!

Signing out, Marc.

I had to give my housemates some blog space before i left so here you go- a quick view of us doing something with an Iphone Cat. this was at our friend clements apartment before we went out close by. Probably the coolest place to go out is a nightclub that is on an old docked boat in the Seine river which runs through the city..up on deck people hang out and down under is a dance floor. It's a pretty small boat though so it's not a big place but still really fun.

Paris pics

It's been a long time since Pontois and a lot has happened; I'll run through some highlights and share a few stories. Also, here are some random pictures and video I've taken along the way.

In some of the best tennis I've played while in France, I won the TC Houilles tournament, a 860€ tournament capped at the 0 ranking spot. The prize money for the winner was 200euros. I beat two 1/6 players who were decent players en route to the victory. I've gotten some strange match times and in the quarterfinals I played a 1/6 on an indoor hard court at 9pm. I played really well to start out and took the first set 6-1. After a major line call dispute in the second set, my opponent went nuts and made the rest of the match miserable; he hooked me on like 3 balls that weren't even close to the line and was talking shit each change over. We were literally the only two people in the building and tensions were definitely high to say the least. He won the 2nd set 6-4. In the third I really found my strokes again and, stepping up my serve and volley game, took the final set 6-3. In the final I played great and managed to win 6-3, 6-3 against a 1/6 named Mathieu Moriot. It's been great stepping up my backcourt game and being able to control points from the back more and more.

I played a tournament in Versailles, about 30 min train ride outside of the city and where the famous WW2 treaty was signed at the massive Chateau de Versailles. I won my match in the morning at a really nice clay court club and then decided to use my 5 hour break before my next match to do some sightseeing and check out the Chateau. Some random guy at the club drove me to the palace and I spent about two hours walking around the famous gardens and checking out its ancient statues. I eat lunch at the Chateau using some salami i had with me and a baguette i bought in town before making it back to the club in time for my next match. I played well and made a really key stride with improving my forehand but lost to a 1/6. Versailles is a really fancy place and the club, the Tennis Club du Grand Versailles, was an amazing clay club with 7 indoor clay and 7 outdoor clay courts. Definitely not a bad place to spend the day.

Some off court news: Paris has been great. I've had lots of nights out on the town with my housemates and have gotten to know my way around pretty well. I took my camera with me one night when we all went out and took some pictures. We didn't end up getting home until about 7am that morning but had a great time. Probably one of the most fun places at night in the city is Pont Neuf. It’s a bridge crossing the Seine right in front of the Louvre that becomes a party and hang out spot on a warm night. Its got drum circles, drinking, and is filled with mostly students. I’ve gone a couple times with my housemates and have had a blast.

While walking around the city one day after playing a match earlier in the day in Velizy, I met an old guy in his 70's who has lived in Paris his whole life. We started talking and he asked if I'd want to meet up one day to practice english and we could work on some french. I agreed not really knowing what to expect. A couple days later I get off the metro at Saint-Michel expecting to meet him on foot; he pulls up in an audi sportscar and the first thing he says to me is "want to drive in paris?" So I've been hanging out with this guy maybe once a week, learning more french and cruising around paris a bit with him.

I leave on Wednesday for Bath (just outside London) to stay and train for a week with the British guys I met at the TC Pontois tournament. Thanks to the high speed trains between the cities it's only about a two hour train ride to London. Rich, Pete, and Richard all play for the University of Bath tennis team and invited me to join their team's practices in October while the French tennis season takes a one-month break. The French Tennis Federation reviews all the results and moves your ranking accordingly. The federation gave Colin and I an assimilated ranking of 2/6 when we first got here in July but I'm hoping, based on my results, that I will be moving up to a 1/6. I'll find out soon. Looking forward to getting a taste of the tennis scene around London and will report back soon!

Until next time, peace.

Paris

Here are some pictures of Tennis Club de Pontois, a cool clay court club where my latest tournament has been. Hey everyone, Marc reporting in. So Colin is back in California and I'm living in a small apartment in the 14thème of Paris to play tournaments in and around the city. It's sad that our camping adventure through Normandie and the Langdouc region has come to an end, but I'm excited about Paris and it's defenitely nice to be settled in one place. My apartment is shared with 4 other students, all going to school in Paris. The apartment is really small and the building was built in the 1800's so it has a weird funky feel to it. The location is great though; it's in the Latin Quarter and right on a key metro line that lets me get to the tournaments. Colin stayed here for a few night before flying home and we had a great first night out in the city with my new housemates.

I just finished my first tournament at the Tennis Club du Pontois, about an hour comute out of the city from my apartment. Colin's last week in France was pretty hectic and included a couple nights out in Montpellier with our tennis friend Demaz, sleeping on the beach, getting woken up by German Shepard police dogs, and surviving a night on the street in Montpellier after Colin's attemt at booking a hostel at a McDonald's cafe failed. So it was nice to turn my attention back to tennis and getting ready for the Pontois Open. The tournament was played on both indoor and outdoor red clay (the terra battu). After a couple days of solid practice with some english guys who were also playing the tournament I felt ready to go. In my first match I ended up playing Pete, one of my new British friends. The match was gritty; Pete hit a high topspin forehand and had a really good chip backhand and would give up very very few errors. This, combined with the slow indoor clay, made for a tough opponent and I realized I could be in for the long haul. After three hours of sliding side to side and getting covered with dusty indoor clay, I finally won 5-7, 6-4, 6-3. On to the quarterfinals and 50€ richer! A hard earned 50€ at that.

In the quarterfinals I lost 4 and 1 to a good french guy ranked 0. His rafa style was just too much for me on the terra battu. Give me a bit more practice on the dirt and maybe i'll take him next time. I was happy to be taking home prize money from my first terra battu tourny though!!

The next night the three english guys from the tournament (including the one I beat) called me up to go out with them in Paris. I met them at their friend's apartment. These guys were crazy!!! The guy I had beaten the other day was just getting hammered and they told me about a tradition they have on their tennis team (university of bathe). If someone losses a set 6-0 that person has to take a shot of one of the other players' piss later that night when they are all partying. And they actually do it! They launched into a series of remember when stories of all the times they've taken shots of each others' piss. I was really glad I hadn't gotten bagled in my first set loss to Pete.

I've been a major metro rat the past 5 days, going to and from Pontois, and felt like I was only navagating the city underground. On one of my days off I escaped the metro and walked a ton around the city with Clemants, a french student who has been living in the apt with her boyfriend. First we went to the Jardin de Luxembourg which is pretty close to our apartment and has some cool public tennis courts wedged between the park's gardens and its palace. Then she showed me the fashion district and we walked down the main fashon street, Avenue Montaigne which is laced with all the famous fashion brands. Walking down the fancy street marked with quadrouple Euro prices made me look back on the days with Colin and when someone would suggest to us, "Oh you guys should go do such & such, it only costs..." And Colin would interupt, "Nope, if it costs money WE'RE NOT DOING IT." We stopped by the Champs Elysèes and then, after walking for like 4 hours, decided to take the metro home (haha).

Living in a sweet spot in Paris is awesome but part of me misses the huck-finn moments with Colin. Perusing my memory for our cheapest moments, I've come up with a few:

-stealing silverware from every grocery store we entered.

-colin refusing to pay 15 euros for the hostel in Gruissan, opting to sleep on the beach and getting drenched by early morning beach irrigation.

Next tourny: TC Du Grand Versailles. 4,730€ terra battu!!!