Month: July 2026

In the first round of the Mixed, Jason Yung & Lucy Fletcher took on Yannick Tandy & Marta Chopnowska.

Jason has a habit of throwing himself around the court to successfully retrieve lost causes. He has some good heavy strokes too, and is very enthusiastic about his tennis. I have seen Yannick play friendly singles, and he looks very useful players. I know anything about the ladies in the match.

This match report was from Jason.

“Yannick had a wicked kick serve and Marta had a solid all round game. Lucy got in to a good rhythm on the return of serve, however she and Jason could not do enough to get more games. There were some incredible net play points but in the end Yannick and Marta were the better pair.”

Or put another way, Yannick and Marta won 6-1 6-2.

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In the Men’s Doubles, Jeff Fine & Geoff Isaacs took on the third seeds, Olly Turner & Joe Rigal, both accustomed to playing tennis at the first and second team level.

Olly & Joe won 6-1 6-0.

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The first Ladies’ Singles match of the tournament, Posy Frederick took on the third seed Jen Ananda-Rajan. Both have strong games, but Jen has had the extra responsibilities of motherhood over the past year, to distract her from tennis. Here is Jen’s match report:-

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Peter Davies had to concede his Men’s Singles match to Joe Smouha as a result of a minor foot sprain. He still hopes to play in the other events later this week.

Three matches were played today.

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Orhun Gulay has to go away for a while, so he wanted to get his singles matches played. He got himself replaced in the Mixed Doubles.

When I saw Orhun as I was arriving and he was leaving, he was in a hurry, and didn’t want to pose for a photo alone, and his opponents had already gone.

In the first of his matches, Orhun Gulay took on Peter Farrell, who plays a reasonable game of singles. Orhun plays a similar game. From the score, it looks like the first set was pretty tight, going to a tie break, which Orhun won. In the second set, Orhun got more of an upper hand, winning it 6-2 to take the match 7-6 6-2.

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Orhun had also arranged a second round match for the winner of the first match, which thus involved Orhun Gulay versus Brendan Fox, who has played for a team, I am told . Brendan won the match 6-0 6-1, and next faces Richard Keep, the third seed.

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There was also a Mixed Doubles match with Simon Defoe & Anna Ganev playing Peter Davies & Emily Harrold. Simon has a decent serve and good ground strokes, and is tall, enabling him to dominate the net. Anna played well, getting back most things within reach, often with a floated ground stroke landing just inside the base line. Emily is very steady, with excellent mobility. She can time the ball well, even off awkward balls, to produce decent pace. She has a good serve, groundstrokes and volleys, but is relatively easy to lob.

Emily and Peter (me) are also playing in the Cumberland tournament (which goes on over 3 months over summer), and we played a match there last weekend. Emily thought that today’s match was at the Cumberland, and I managed to forget my mobile phone, so there was a delay in starting the match while Emily drove from the Cumberland. Fortunately the two are less then a five minute drive apart.

Simon started with a good service hold, but Emily and Peter were able to gradually assert themselves in the other games. The main issue was keeping the ball away from Simon at the net. On Anna’s serve Simon sometimes tried to cover the soft, angled, crosscourt shots, but in doing so, left himself exposed to a pass down the line.

Simon and Anna got three games in each set, for a 6-3 6-3 victory to Emily and Peter.

The tournament has started, though only three matches had been played, as of Saturday night.

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In the Men’s Singles, played on Thursday, Simon Defoe played Ben Torns in the round of 64 preliminary matches. Simon is new this year, but has a decent serve and ground strokes. He also has the advantage of height, allowing him to dominate at the net, at least at doubles.

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On Friday, Josh Woodyard and Kerry Karageorgis played in another R64 preliminary Men’s Singles. Kerry has been playing a lot, mainly on the hard courts. Further, he is a leftie, which takes a bit of getting used to, especially in singles. Here’s the match report from Josh, supplied via Kerry:-

“Kerry secured a convincing 6-2 6-1 victory. His tactical awareness proved decisive, repeatedly exposing Josh’s difficulty handling changes in pace, blocked shots and slice.”

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On Saturday evening there was a Mixed Doubles between Henry Lloyd-Hughes & Liz Hill, and Sultan Gangji & Jen Ananda-Rajan, the fourth seeds. Various spectators got to know about it and put in an appearance.

Henry & Liz were playing the role of David against Goliath here, and had not played together before. Liz said she was relying on Henry, who is a leftie, to do most of the running, and indeed he obliged. Henry and Liz tried to take advantage when Sultan and Jen both approached the net, by lobbing. This was reasonably effective, but didn’t yield enough points on its own.

Jen and Sultan generally just kept putting the ball back in court, often into places where the opponents weren’t, though Henry got to a number of these balls. The seeds didn’t make too many mistakes, but there were enough of them, along with the challenger lobs, to give the challengers two games, one in each set, for a 6-1 6-1 victory to Sultan and Jen.