Re(1): International of Cesta Punta - Saint Jean de Luz streaming Tuesday July 7 around 3:45pm-4pm EDT Posted on July 7, 2026 at 08:49:51 PM by BigMucho
Spoilers alert. Stop reading here.
This turned out to be the relatively easy win for Urreisti-Basque that nearly everyone probably expected.
Garcia actually played very solidly, but he had no chance whatsoever to win this partido paired with a back courter of Caparrus' caliber. Garcia looks like he clearly belongs playing against the sport's elite players and he should do just fine for himself in subsequent "Summer League" partidos when teamed up with better quality zagueros.
Much like Libois, although he is a pretty good young player with potential, Caparrus has little business currently being a participant in these "Summer League" tournaments. To those who might say that he won the qualifying rounds and therefore deserves to be here, that ignores the facts that the qualifying rounds were rigged to favor Caparrus by pairing him with only the best and never the worst front courters, and by not even inviting clearly superior back courters such as Argoitia to even try to compete to qualify.
For such a big and strong looking kid, Caparrus demonstrated surprisingly little power throwing the pelota from either the left or the right sides. [Atain and Argoitia blow him away in this regard.] Rather, Caparrus seems focused on trying to throw from both sides with a perfect form that exhibits smoothness and finesse at the expense of ever just letting the ball fly with raw aggression and velocity. His quest for perfect smoothness is reminiscent of the style seen, for example, with Hartford early gamer Roland, or Milford/Dania late gamer Arbu. But the problem with this is that he often didn't throw the ball hard enough to get it past Urreisti in the front court which of course was a death sentence in the partido.
These "Summer League" partidos would have been far more competitive with Atain and Argoitia as participating back courters rather than Caparrus and Laborde.
I just love the boldness of Urreisti. I mean this in a good way: Urreisti had absolutely no fear or respect for Caparrus or even Garcia, and he repeatedly challenged them mano a mano throughout with kill shot attempts. Over time, Urreisti will learn to have a lot more respect for Garcia than he does currently, but for now his total confidence is fun to watch.
Tiger's Jai-Alai Chalk Talk
