12th Tennis Tournament Eurobuild CEE

It’s certainly no overstatement to say that this year's 12th Eurobuild Tennis Tournament was extraordinarily thrilling. As well as the men’s and women’s singles tournaments a doubles tournament was also held for the first time in the history of the event. Arkadiusz Płociński and Łukasz Pobereszko from Real Management faced Grzegorz Soszka and Marek Rosiak from Super Sport Car in the doubles finals. The Super Sport Car team won 6:3 to take first prize.

For the first time the event was held in the Warszawianka tennis centre, which has both indoor and outdoor courts, and this turned out to be a blessing as the outdoor courts were waterlogged covered in vast puddles. Not even one game was played outside. Starting at 8 o’clock, the players in the tournament had the opportunity to take part in a training session held by Krzysztof Puna, an experienced coach from the Gawłowski Tennis Academy . As usual the play in the women’s singles was both fierce and of a high standard. The title was defended by Zuzanna Wróblewska from JLL, who beat off rivals Monika Żywiecka from Griffin Real Estate and Małgorzata Frąckiewicz from Cushman & Wakefield.

JLL nearly took the men’s singles as well. In the semi-finals. Anton Bashtavy a 26-year-old financial analyst, who was making his debut in the tournament, beat the favourite, last year’s champion Tomasz Marsz, who is an associate in the office department of BSC Real Estate Advisors. And in the finals he faced off with Michał Kojecki from Euro House Development.

This tennis player, who is in his mid 50s but still incredibly fit, played a decisive and varied game quickly taking a three game lead over his much younger rival. However, the other player was also in excellent physical condition (last year he entered the Ironman competition in Belgium) and had superb technique (he played tennis internationally up until the age of 16). He started to make a comeback and would probably have won the entire match if it hadn’t been for a muscle injury which stopped play with a score of 4:4. The doubles and singles finals were watched by Kamil Fabisiak, the current Polish wheelchair tennis champion (in 21st position on the list of the ITF international federation). Earlier he played a demonstration game against Aleksandra Cytrynowicz, who was once among the top eight players in Poland.

The winners of the various competitions were handed their prizes during an evening award ceremony held in Warsaw’s Boathouse restaurant. It was a rock’n’roll party replete with hairdressers and makeup artists from the Denique salon who helped the guests recreate the atmosphere of 1950s and 1960s.