Donibane Lohizune (Saint-Jean-de-Luz) Internationaux Cesta Punta Master 2 Final: Olha-Minnvielle defeated Egiguren-Inza 2-0 (15-12, 15-12)
Full match video
As all of you know by now, I am a bit obsessed with the speed of Jai Alai (see the SPEED article linked to from the Coupe-de-France Post on the main blog). No one needs to make wild claims about 150 mph, etc. The normal average speed of the game is awesome enough. No other ball game comes close. I was a little puzzled when I watched the 1st Coupe de France semi-final a couple of weeks ago. Curveur threw a couple of long rebotes at 167kph (104mph) and 163 (101). The fastest of 97 clocked speeds. Tambourindeguy's 142 and 143 (88 and 89) were the slowest. Almost everything else clocked came in at around 150 (93). Seemed a pretty fast average speed to me.
In the Master 2 final they didn't start clocking speeds until early in the second set. They clocked 23 throws. Unfortunately, 21 of them were by the back courters, so not much of a sense of front court speed. In any event, here are the findings.
Front--
Egiguren 174kph (108mph) on a serve. He was serving a little harder than he normally does, trying to protect Inza (more on that later).
Olha--170 (106) on a hard return cortada of an Egi cortada that split the defense and won a point.
Back--
Most of these were on the beautiful underhand scoops that they throw. I don't know what the throw is called but it is always beautiful to watch. I wish they had clocked overhand and sidearm throws from the back but they didn't.
Minvielle--188 (117) (He was between the 11 and 12 line when he threw this). All the rest were from deeper. 185 (115), 183 (114), 3 at 182 (113), 3 at 181 (112), 178 (111). Avg: 182.3 (113.3)
Inza--188 (117), 184 (114), 3 at 183 (114), 182 (113), 4 at 181 (112), 178 (111). Avg: 182.3 (113.3)
So for the hard throws we can't say too much about the front guys except the throws clocked didn't seem terribly exceptional. For the back guys, average: 113mph. So the whole game, except for dejadas (between maybe 5 and 10) and desparate saves (same, maybe a couple more), AVERAGE speed (conservatively estimating for front courters) between 100 and 115mph. And of course, these aren't the fastest guys. I don't know how fast Goikoetxea was throwing his cortada at Zumaia. But it seemed quite a bit faster than Olha in the match two nights before.
A word about Txabi Inza. He appeared to jam his foot into the bottom of the back wall, turning his ankle pretty severely during the 4-3 point in the first set. He left for about 15 minutes (this was edited out of the Youtube version but was in the Daily Motion live feed). When he came back it was pretty clear he was playing on one leg. He made a lot of mistakes. But he also threw two beautiful chulas (1 in each set), threw at the speeds listed above, and they lost the match 15-12, 15-12. Egiguren did everything he could, played way further back than normal, but it was a bridge to far. You could hear Inza scold himself for some of his mistakes, but the fact that he played at all on one leg was an amazing profile in courage.
And by the way, Olha showed no signs of the Goikoetxea cortada that hit him on the hip in the Zumaia match. For a guy I thought was a 36 year old filler, he has played some great Jai Alai this summer.
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