Basque pelota blog in english – Dos paredes

Tuesday 4th September, Lekeitio

OLAIZOLA II – APRAIZ  beat BERASALUZE VIII – ALBISU 22-18

The final of the Lekeitio San Antolin tournament was held on Tuesday and saw victory for the 2011 champions in a hard fought duel. I only saw brief snippets so cannot report in too much detail, but the game was extremely close for the first half an hour, with neither pair able to get more than two ahead after Olaizola and Apraiz had overcome an early deficit of 0-4. The match up between Olaizola and Berasaluze, who has been in great shape of late, left nothing to be desired. Berasaluze came at the Manomanista champion all guns blazing, several times passing him crosscourt with his left arm, with an air of ‘anything you can do, I can do better’. Greater consistency put Berasaluze and Albisu into a handsome lead at 16-10 but where Olaizola is involved, almost no comeback is too much of a challenge. He shifted up a gear when his back was the the wall and was able to get on top of his forward rival. At the same time, Albisu’s error count increased in contrast to Apraiz who grew in confidence as the match progressed. Once the favourites got ahead at 19-17, their opponents had few answers and the match was sealed. Aimar Olaizola was deservedly named player of the tournament as he notched up his third festival victory of the summer.

Scoring sequence: 0-4/6-4/6/7/8/9/10-11/10-16/17-16/17/19-17/19-18/22-18
Olaizola II: 2 service winners, 8 winners
Berasaluze VIII: 2 service winners, 7 winners
Match time: 66 minutes with 22:43 of actual play
Balls hit: 444

Photo: mine