Calcutta: Saturday January 17th Calcutta Happenings

How do you mess up a lot of brackets? Well Super Freak and The Pirate did just that in the first match of the day by pasting favoured Ces and Gordo in two straight. The winners displayed the same formation that got them to last year's championship - Norm camped at back of court picking his corners and hitting the occasional lob to allow Rick to get back into position.

Speaking of Ces, he set another Calcutta record by being the first person ever to submit his bracket and get zero games correct. Yes that's right of the first 12 matches played, Ces predicted zero correctly. Now is not the time for you to buy a lottery ticket Ces.

The second match had Norm and Byron against Colin and yours truly. All 3 games went 15-14. Described by many as the most entertaining match of the day, Norm and Byron won the third to advance. Those who had me getting hit the most will have to wait another year for that - two rackets in the arm is all I had to pay for playing against the most aggressive right waller in the tourney.

The order of matches got a little blurry after the second match of the day. I do know that James Mallon and Ted Charuk played exceptionally well to take out Ivan and Derek two straight. There will be doping tests on Ted today.

Another Calcutta first took place in the Steve Kearns and Big Ian Camacho match versus Barrett and Litton. The versatile B/L combo switched walls again with Chris on the left for their second match of the tourney. After a first game, where it looked like Steve and Ian might not make positive figures, Steve and Ian took the second relatively easily to set up the finale. During one point, Ian made a great return of a volley - the problem was it was Steve who had hit the volley - point Barrett and Litton. Chris and Mark won 2-1 to advance to the quarters.

Neil Cawse and Ed Corbett showed up for the last match of the day and felt the pain of having to play Super Freak and the Pirate. 2-0 and the boys continue to the quarters.

Gotta love this pose

On the other side of the draw, the young guns Scott Austin and Josh, yeah I will ref, Chartrand, took on +5 Kretzie and Bellm. The vets figured out they needed to slow the game down in game two to force a third game. Josh, leading the tournament in skinned knees and hands, and Scott played well enough to advance.

Al Cook and Cass Quinn, now fully acquainted with each other then took on Big Paul Grootendorst and John Graham. Cass had already been hit in his match against Mark Braden. Keeping that trend going, big Paul hit a hard backhand into Cass's lower back, barely missing the area from Cass's surgery the previous week.

Cass and Al win in two to advance to play the young lads in quarters.

Cass almost fell off the wagon

Finally, Dave Peters and Mike Philp played Mckeown and Hurtubise in a very entertaining match that went two straight. Mike did his job of lobbing that bejesus out of Brent and waiting for him to cave. Well that did not happen. Partner Mark predicted that Brent would be cool, calm and collected and kick butt. So far he is right.

When asked what went wrong, Dave told yours truly that he broke the wrong racket and had his shirt on backwards. Don't worry Dave we only paid $720 for you ya fricker!