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.
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