From Air Jer to Air Jere in 1 weekend

Chaos#25, formerly known as ‘Air Jer’ invaded Finland this weekend and made his way to the open singles semifinals (where we won’t mention that he got his ass handed to him by Matti Pohjola).

Initially seeded 10th of 24 players, Jer won his pool by squeaking out a victory over his doubles partner Timo Vorne and beating two other players. #25 went on to win two more matches before losing to the number 1 and 3 seeds. With his impressive performance, the Finns have agreed to bestow upon him his finnish name, Jere Mirkennen. In other news, Air Jere was dubbed a “Super American” by Sasha Smirnov, with at least a 1.5 multiplier of awesomeness over the typical American. In doubles, Chaos #25 and his partner, Timo, were unable to capitalize on several match points and ultimately lost in the quarterfinals, securing 5th place in consolation.

Final impressions: the Finns are pretty good English speakers, they make funny English wise-cracks, and they know how to run a fun event. Mixed doubles and open doubles were run entirely on Saturday, and open singles was run on Sunday. No events started earlier than 11AM on either day, which was great considering the amount of alcoholic fluid imbibed by players during the prior evenings. Matti Pohjola got to the finals of all 3 events at his own tournament and won 2 of them. Jani Markannen is an excellent singles player and can definitely give Manu a run for his money in Prague this year. And yes, Oskari Forsten can his a fast roll-spike, as well as 20 other types of spikes. Helsinki and Turku were awesome places to visit. I hope I will be able to return next Summer.