The order of play for Thursday (including Mixed Doubles final) and Finals Day on Saturday can be found here.
Thursday it is raining and expected to be drizzly until 4 pm, and then clear. But there may not be time for the grass to dry out enough to be playable for the Men’s Doubles semifinals and Mixed Doubles finals tonight. So these may have to be played on the hard courts.
Rachael Gangji prepared a super Gourmet fish pie main course, and Lara provided strawberry pavlova for dessert. Most people went back for seconds.
Meanwhile, the cat who has adopted us was on sentry duty around the perimeter of the club to keep the unwanted foxes away. Later, he came to greet us and be stroked in return for his service to the club members.
There were 3 matches played on Wednesday
- 18:00 LS SF Alex Reyner (1) vs Marjan Denis
- 18:00 MS QF Logan Mair (1) vs David Hirst (8)
- 19:15 MD SF Stephen Cooke & Logan Mair (1) vs Olly Turner & Joseph Rigal (3)
On court 1, Marjan Denis had to play the top seed Alex Reyner. Marjan has a good all round game with some strong strokes. The only snag is that Alex also has a good all round game and seemingly hits the ball almost twice as hard, particularly the serve.
Marjan hit some good winners, and Alex made some errors, but Marjan struggled to hang on to her service games. Alex won 6-1 6-2.
In the Men’s Singles quarter final on court 2, David Hirst was trying to upset the top seed Logan Mair. David can generate a lot of pace on the ball on the serve and groundstrokes, but doesn’t quite have the consistency that Logan has. As for the previous Ladies’ Singles match, David hit some decent winners, particularly when Logon was at the net, accompanied by load and raucous applause for the under dog from the majority centre court crowed. But David couldn’t keep up the required pace of shot and get enough of them in to threaten Logan, who won the match by the same score, 6-1 6-2.
There seems to be no clear consensus on who will triumph in the Men’s Singles final on Saturday, with all the semi-finalists receiving support. Hopefully, this is a taste of tantalising Men’s Singles matches to come on Thursday and Saturday.
The highlight of the evening for the spectators was undoubtedly the Men’s Doubles semifinal match between top seeds and 2023 champions, Stephen Cooke & Logan Mair, and the third seeds Olly Turner & Joseph Rigal. Olly and Joseph were hopeful, but Stephen is very difficult to get past, as he is 6’3″ tall, has long arms in proportion and excellent anticipation, movement and strokes. Stephen can also hit strong and high first serves. Logan is consistent and can whack a first serve down to which the return is difficult to control. Logan can also employ tricky top slice serves. If he misses on the first serve, he can get a topspin second serve in which doesn’t give much away. Joseph and Olly also have heavy serves and shots, but can’t quite retrieve and respond to pace in the same way as Stephen in particular.
The first set generally went with serve, but Joseph and Olly could not prevent being broken, to give Stephen and Logan the first set 6-3.
The second set was much closer, and reached 5 games all. If my memory is correct, Joseph and Olly then threatened Logan’s serve, but Logan held on, as did Joseph and Olly, setting up a set tie break (normal first to 7 tie break). There were a few mini-breaks in the tie break, but these were always recovered until matters reach 7 all, when Stephen and Logan pulled out two points in a row to take the match 6-3 7-69-7.
