Here are the matches played on Friday 19th July – all men’s singles matches!
- 17:00 MS David Cohen vs Geoff Isaacs
- 17:30 MS Alex Vallmajor vs Kris Engley
- 18:00 MS Jasper Tresidder vs Philip Reid
- 18:00 MS Luca Fioretti vs Richard Keep
- 19:00 MS Joseph Rigal vs Orhun Guly
In the first of the 5 Men’s Singles matches on Friday night, Geoff Isaacs played David Cohen. These are two seasoned singles campaigners.
David lives on the nearest corner so plays quite a bit. However, Geoff is the more hard hitting player, though David is very mobile and consistent.
Geoff’s generally strategy seemed to be to gradually force David towards the back of the court, while himself advancing closer to the net to hit a winner. Sometimes, David was able to pass Geoff, but more often than not, Geoff won the point. Geoff won the match 6-1 6-2 – a very popular score in this Men’s Singles round!
Kris Engley played Alex Vallmajor, the third seed.
It emerged later that Anne Sophie Capel had been at least partially responsible for Kris beating Kerry Karageorgis by a decent margin in the previous round. Playing in the same social four, Kerry had previously asked Anne Sophie what Kris was like, never having met him. Anne Sophie said he was 55 with two children, and rather busy to play very much. The evening before the match was Kerry’s wife’s birthday. Kerry was deciding whether or not to have another beer, and his wife cautioned him not to, given the match the following morning. But Kerry considered it was safe to do so, given Anne Sophie’s counsell! However, Kris is actually married with no kids, in his early forties and can hit a decent ball. So he beat Kerry 6-1 6-0. Anne Sophie was clearly thinking of someone else, or determined to sabotage Kerry’s chances!
In the match against Alex Vallmajor, Kris played a pretty good game. Alex tends not to go for outright winners early in a point, but rarely makes a mistake, and is relentless in being able to move someone around the court, until they are tired in the point and match, and start making errors.
This is what happened most of the time in this match. Alex induced errors from Kris, and by the end of the first set, Kris was breathing quite hard, having lost it 1-6. But in the second set, Kris stepped up his game, and it was a while before Alex broke serve. In fact I think he was also broken at one point. But the error rate statistics continued, and Alex won the match 6-1 6-3.
I was personally fascinated to see how the match went between the two lefties, Luca Fioretti and Richard Keep, the second seed. Against me, Luca used a variety of flat and leftie slice serves, which had considerable sidespin. He also can put considerable sidespin on groundstrokes and has a super 2-handed crosscourt backhand. He beat me 7-5 6-0.
Richard has a booming serve and some powerful groundstrokes, but was struggling somewhat with seeing the ball – particularly from the hard courts end of grass court 2. But, as a spectator, from the other end of the court, I was also finding it a little difficult to immediately pick up the flight of balls. Further, Richard was not serving that well.
The net result of all this was that the first set was extremely competitive, and Luca held his own into a set tie break. But Richard took this 7-4 for a 7-67-4 set win.
When asked after the match, Richard said that he started seeing the ball better in the second set. But how does one set about doing that? Either way, he played much better in the second set, taking it 6-0 for a 7-67-4 6-0 victory.
I was somewhat relieved that Richard had some of the same problems with Luca’s game that I did, at least in the first set!
Meanwhile, on court 3, Jasper Tresidder played Philip Reid, the sixth seed. Sultan clearly had a view on the likely outcome of the match from his seeding of Philip. But some of the spectators were seriously doubting the match would go this way, as Philip has not been playing that regularly recently, and Jasper is more consistent than before.
Both players are similarly tall (from the photo), with heavy serves and groundstrokes. Jasper is perhaps less consistent than Philip at his best, but Jasper plays regularly.
However, in the first set, Jasper seems to have been caught on the hop somewhat, perhaps by Philip’s wide wingspan and pace, as Philip took it 6-1.
In the second set, Jasper broke and was serving at 3-2 up to consolidate the break. But, from his remarks to spectators as he took a short break from the match, he didn’t seem to have full confidence that he could take the second set and the match. And so it proved, as he could not stop Philip taking the next 4 games for a 6-1 6-3 victory.
In the final match of the evening, Orhun Guly was challenging the seventh seed, Joseph Rigal, supported, as ever, by his father, Bruce, who has not entered the tournament this year, not being available for the second week!
As an occasional Men’s First Team player, Joseph has a much stronger and more consistent game than Orhun, but can go through occasional periods of lower concentration, with errors creeping in (as most of us do). Further, he can get very frustrated with this.
As an occasional Men’s First Team player, Joseph has a much stronger and more consistent game than Orhun, but can go through occasional periods of lower concentration, with errors creeping in (as most of us do). Further, he can get very frustrated with this.
Joseph was dominant in the first set, winning it 6-0. Mid way through the second set, it looked very much as if Orhun was about to be double bageled. But, I think on Joseph’s 5-0 serve, Joseph served a couple of double faults, and Orhun hit a great winner down the line on a service return, winning his only game of the match. Although frustrated by the interruption to his campaign of a smooth victory, Joseph then won the last game to take the match 6-1 6-0.
