Lausanne. August 2020.
We thought we were staying with someone.
We arrived at one place. They gave us the keys and told us to go somewhere else. To a different flat. Crazy.
To this day I don't know whose flat it was.
That's when roundnet hospitality really hit me.
But let me start a month earlier.
Where do you play when your country can't?
Summer 2020. In Germany, no tournaments, because of COVID. Switzerland had a few.
So, Bern. The first official tournament after the lockdown, and it was great.
I played with Franziska Stadler 🇩🇪, Julia's sister. We slept at Merlin's 🇨🇭. Swiss national player, our host, and remember the name, he comes back in this story.
And we played Ramon Felix 🇨🇭 and Nora. My favourite opponents. Some people you just love to play against 🙂
Six hours for one tournament?
"Six hours, Jakub? For one weekend?"
Yes. A month later there was still nothing in Germany. So Justin, Julia Stadler 🇩🇪 (a roundnet legend in her own right, Worlds silver in 2024 with her sister Franziska), Matze and I got in the car in Munich and drove to Lausanne. About six hours. Just to play roundnet.
The car we shared. The bed was a stranger's flat. That was the whole budget.
Right after the weekend I sent a friend a voice note. Almost four minutes, in German. The first thing I talked about wasn't the results:
"Super location, right on the sea."
(It's a lake. Lake Geneva. I was clearly still excited 😆)
"The people, super nice. We slept in a flat of some guy who wasn't even there, he just left us the keys. So, easy."
So, easy. Even with the detour.
And the roundnet?
Justin and I. About six strong teams, and a lot of rookies around them.
Group stage: 15:3, 15:2. Most of the points we gave away were our own double faults. I said it in the voice note: games like that are no fun. They are even mentally tiring.
Semifinal: Julia and Matze. Yes, the two we drove down with 🙂
Three sets. In the third we were up 14:12.
Then Julia served a backhand on Justin. Ace.
We lost in extras.
"Justin and I shouldn't really lose that," I told my friend. "We made it too complicated, and afterwards we were weak, mentally and physically."
The final: Julia and Matze against Ramon Felix 🇨🇭 and Merlin 🇨🇭. The Swiss won. Our host from Bern, champion in Lausanne. Best form on the day. Beatable, for sure, but technically "really, really nice."
Third place: Johannes Kopfmann 🇩🇪 and Till Spitznagel 🇩🇪 from Freiburg, both former German national players. We didn't show up for the first set and a half. My words at the time: "I haven't watched the videos yet, but it was a catastrophe."
Third set. Down 4:10. Back to 13:12.
And we still lost.
And the women?
Four teams in the women's division. I barely saw any of it.
In the same voice note I was already planning a small women's tournament in Munich with Julia and Franzi. Max 16 teams, six to eight of them elite, so nobody sits through a whole day of 15:2 games.
It never happened.
So what stays?
Not the semifinal. Not the 13:12.
The keys.
That's what we try to do at FRESH, our roundnet camp in Mallorca: make it easy to show up. A bed, a field, people who are glad you came. The rest is just six hours on the road.
Lausanne, August 2020. We thought we were staying with someone. We were, in a way. We just never found out who.
Do you have a story like this?
A couch, a set of keys, a stranger from the roundnet community who made your trip work? Send it to us. We read every one and publish the best here on the blog.
The button opens an email with a short template. The permission to publish is already in it. Keep it in, and we can share your story.
Future Roundnet runs FRESH, a roundnet camp in Mallorca. More at futureroundnet.com/fresh-27.