Despite the earlier rain, a few matches were played or completed on the hard courts, watched by a few spectators.
The interrupted Mixed Doubles match from Thursday was completed today. The match had stopped for rain as Orhun Güley & Carine Valarche were a closely fought 7- 6⁸ set up against Mark Webb & Lesley South. On the resumption, on hard court 5, Orhun and Carine were able to step up the pressure, and took all but one game of the second set, taking the match 7- 6⁸ 6-1.
In the Men’s Singles, Fred Davidson (with family support) played Stephen Cooke, the 3rd seed. Fred showed in his previous win over Peter Davies that he can play shots with low risk of making unforced errors, but that doesn’t work that well against Stephen. Stephen can generate a lot of pace and pressure, and always seems to hit the ball in the centre of the racket. He is also tall, giving an advantage on the serve, a wide wingspan, and speed about the court.
Fred did not unduly delay Stephen’s progress, while his daughter amused herself indulging in her favourite activity of drawing princesses.
Stephen won 6-0 6-0.
In another, seemingly regular, tournament match fixture, Elena Valarche played Marjan Denis in the Ladies’ Singles. As might be predicted, Elena started the match by coming to the net as often as possible. Marjan’s response was to hit deep lobs, which generally went in, but not always. After a while, Elena was more selective in when she came in, and did not get as close to the net as before. Many points were then decided by Marjan’s accuracy on the passing shot or lob.
The first set reached 2 games all, then Marjan won 3 games in a row to reach 5-2 up. Elena responded by holding and breaking to bring the score to 4-5 on Elena’s serve. Marjan broke for a 6-4 set win.
In the second set Elena was determined to do better and broke Marjan in the fifth game to go 3-2 up with her own serve to come. At that point the rain got too heavy to continue, and the match was abandoned for the day.
