The comeback of the Golden Boy… Carlos Montoto

Everybody knows Carlos. He’s been a standard of reference in the league since he started competing a few years back. His story is short of amazing: A fellow Argentinian player that got to an incredible level in his 20s playing interclub for some of the best teams in Buenos Aires, and also a regular in the Top Serve (professional) tournaments back in the day. I remember his name in the rankings on the veterans’ league in Argentina. He was always among the candidates for the trophy. Fast forward to Montréal, and after dominating the rankings in +35s, he got a severe injury a couple of years ago. After a long and painful recovery, “Charlie” came back and started getting back his old himself.

Last year he made an impressive first half of the year with victories in Boucherville, and Laval; third place at the Eastern Canadian Championship… but again a minor injury kept him aside for some time. He tried to rush things coming back at Carrefour Laval Outdoor in September. It turned out to be a bad call. He skipped the reminder of the season.

In 2014 Charlie got a great start, got final in Boucherville, playing a fantastic 3-set match against his buddy Olivier Borlée. He didn’t play in Québec, neither in the Eastern Canadian, but went for Carrefour Laval. He was on a roll there. He got passed his opponents with ease. Yet in the final, he was not able to deliver.

Charlie gave me a call after his loss and agreed to start hitting on a more regular basis to help him get back in form. We certainly did so… by the second straight week, I could barely keep myself in the rallies. His balls were flying past me like scud missiles, landing inches away from the baseline and destroying everything around. It was like playing against an US Army drone.

CDL was the next challenge and Charlie went on to beat Demers, Salhany, and his Laval conqueror, Richard Lacombe in the final: 6-0, 5-7, 6-1. The Golden Boy was back!!... And he wants more.

He promised me an exclusive interview. It’s going to be great fun. I will post it of course.

See you in the hunt.

Yours,

IRON GAUCHO  

Fighting pain… injuries right and left… The Borlée incident.

As I mentioned in my last post, a sudden pain in my right arm prevented me to play the Eastern Canadian Championship.  I was eager to go and measure myself against the top guys in Ontario, but an irritation on a couple of tendons in my arm made me change my mind.

Québec was well represented with Olivier Borlée in the +40s as #1 seeded,  Alex Blaettler and Martin Lemay (top and second seeded respectively) and so on.

Tournament showed great matches and old rivalries that pushed these gladiators to the limit. Borlée’s run had a halt in the semis against Robert Husain from Ontario. During the first set at 4 games-all Olli’s Achilles tendon ruptured and left our brave friend twisting in pain. Martin Lemay ran to help his friend just minutes away of playing his own semifinal match. Olivier was later brought back to Montréal where he went through surgery to repair the damage. 

Is going to take some time to recover, but I’m sure we’ll see him back next season as strong and hard to beat as usual.

Have a good recovery Olivier!

Going back to the tournament, the Borlée incident may have played a little bit on Martin’s defeat in the +45s semifinals. I was told that his legendary focus on the task in hand was no longer there. A 3 set battle against Dariusz Kozak, showed a rollercoaster of emotions. The outcome in the result testifies it: 6-3, 0-6, 6-2 for the fourth seeded. But Martin got third place the following day beating Mike O’Neill by demolition.

Alex Blaettler was running the show on skates and went on to win the tournament without dropping a set… again. A well-deserved victory for this simpatico Swiss lad.

My plans to come back at Carrefour Laval got delayed as the pain in my arm kept bothering me. Not preventing me to keep training, but still bad enough not to be able to play a full competition match. So… another tournament to skip.

In the meantime, Lucien Desmarais invited Martin Drapeau and me for a nice lunch downtown Montréal. He wanted to thank us for our contribution to the Rankings Committee at the AVTQ (Association des Vétérans de Tennis du Québec). We had a great time with Lucien, who also brought many gifts for us. We got spoiled. I’m glad that we are helping somehow; organizing tournaments, running the whole league, is a lot of work. And we are just providing a little bit of our expertise in order to unload part of that weight from Lucien’s shoulders.

Thanks Lucien for the nice time, the anecdotes, and the gifts!

See you in the hunt.

Yours,

IRON GAUCHO