If you haven’t already put your name down on the sheet in the Club House for the Gourmet Dinners during the second week, from Monday 21 July – Thursday, 24 July, do so ASAP. before they fill up.
Men’s Singles Quarter final matches, most Semi final matches, and, on Thursday, the Mixed Doubles final, are played on these days from around 6 pm and dinner follows the end of play. We have space for 30 people each evening and we eat on tables outside the clubhouse, weather permitting.
Despite the soaring temperatures (slightly better on Sunday), a few matches were played over the weekend
On Saturday, in the Men’s Doubles, Peter Farrell & Peter Davies played Steve Yoo & Kris Engley. While both Peters play a lot of singles, Steve & Kris are regular men’s second team players and are more match tight and experienced in competitive men’s doubles matches, as well as having stronger games.
While Steve & Kris held all their serves, the Peters struggled to induce errors and hit winners on their own service games. It sometimes happened, but not often enough. Peter Farrell held his service in the first set, and Peter Davies held his in the second set, for a 6-1 6-1 victory to Steve and Kris.
Braving the early day heat in the Men’s Singles, Orhun Güley and Kerry Karageorgis battled it out. Orhun hits a decent ball, and so does Kerry, though he was carrying an arm injury a couple of months ago. He must have recovered from that though. Kerry also plays a lot of singles.
Kerry summarised the match with a terse “I beat Orhun 6-3 6-2. Not much to report”. I would assume he broke Orhun once or twice in the first set, and a couple of times in the second set!
On Sunday, Matt Wasser (our new Webmaster) took on Alex Vallmajor, the 8th seed, in the Men’s Singles.
Matt summarised the game as follows:-
“There were many close games, but at the end of the day Alex’s very accurate placement, net play and passing shots won the day [and the games almost all of the time – Peter]! We played on the hard court and I could not find a way to attack him. Glad to have experienced this masterclass though! Alex won 6-1, 6-0”
On Sunday evening, Fred Davidson and Peter Davies played a Men’s Singles. Fred’s general approach was to try to avoid all errors, and chase down everything, while Peter tried to manoeuvre Fred out of position to hit winners.
In the first set Fred’s serve wasn’t working properly, and he got broken a lot, though he also broke Peter. He tried a few underarm serves, but these just went straight in the net. Peter took the first set 6-3.
In second and third sets, Fred’s heavy first serve started to work better, though Peter returned almost all of them to the back of the court apart from a few in the very corners (I wasn’t always as alert as I should have been!) On the ground strokes, Fred reverted to safety moonballs most of the time, and Peter’s timing wasn’t good enough to take advantage on the high bouncing balls, so he kept making errors when attempting to put on pressure or hit winners. The net result was a 3-6 6-5 6-3 victory to Fred after a marathon 2 plus hours three setter.
(Sorry, I forgot to take a picture, I was so hot, sweaty and tired afterwards. But that doesn’t mean anyone else has an excuse to forget to take a picture!!!)
In the Men’s Doubles, Kerry Karageorgis & Orhun Güley played the brothers Marc & Philip Reid.
Marc and Philip Reid won, but I don’t know the score yet.
Also in the Men’s Doubles, the father and son pair of Joe & Harry Smouha played Olly Turner & Joe Rigal, the third seeds. Both of these have played multiple times for the men’s first team this summer.
I know little about the standard of tennis of the Smouhas , but the result was 6-1 6-1 to Olly and Joe.
