To my huge surprise, only two matches were played today, both starting 4 pm and in reasonable temperatures.
In the mixed on court 1, Anna Ganev & Eugene Belin took on Jen Ehr & Sultan Gangi, the second seeds and runners up in last years tournament. The challengers seemed to have been intimidated by Sultan and Jen, and didn’t have a good response to Jen’s strong topspin forehand, which caused a number of errors, so never really got going. Sultan and Jen won the match 6-1 6-0
In the men’s singles, Paul O’Flynn took on David Hirst, who joined in October, having had a break from serious tennis for a while. Paul had warmed up with Jasper Tresidder for 20 minutes before going on court with his opponent. From the knock up, both had decent serves, though David’s serve was the stronger of the two, as were his groundstrokes, but both were capable of errors, and David’s ploy was to avoid too many unforced error. David served to kick off the match, and the first set must have been pretty tight, as David won it 6-3 with only 1 net break of serve.
In the second set, Paul did not fare so well. In the last game of the set he could get to the net behind his serve and move David around, but always seemed to net the potential winner when the point was there for the taking. It thus appeared that David played the more consistently, winning the set 6-1 and the match 6-3 6-1.
David’s next opponent is Stephen Cooke, the third seed, so the tactics he used against Paul are not likely to work as Stephen is far more consistent. David believes he will have to play a more forceful game to give himself a shot.
