Author: Peter Davies Admin

The following matches were played on Saturday 20th July on the porous macadam court 4:-

• 13:00 MS Henry Lloyd-Hughes vs Greg Lim
• 14:00 MD Joseph Rigal & Olly Turner vs Geoff Isaacs & Gideon Stone
• 15:00 LD Moira Duncan & Marjan Denis vs Lesley South & Jane Boyle

After the heatwave conditions during Friday daytime, the grass courts were given a good watering to slake their thirst on Friday evening. Unfortunately then Saturday turned out not to be as warm as expected, and there was an unexpected shower on Saturday. The result was that some of the grass ended up waterlogged, and did not recover in time for the 13:00 start of tournament play on Saturday afternoon. So all three matches were played sequentially on hard court 4 to suit the avid spectators!

In the warm-up singles, Henry Lloyd-Hughes took on the fifth seed Greg Lim.

From seeing the second set, Henry seemed to be playing a very careful game, to avoid unforced errors. Greg is very consistent, and can aim shots with pace. He was always looking to hit with pace to the sidelines to force a shorter ball from Henry. Greg would then hit a strong approach shot to one side or other of the court, come in, and put away the next shot from Henry.

Generally, Greg’s approach worked, and he took the first set 6-2. Henry tried to keep the ball long from his own services, but Greg usually managed to turn to attack in the rally as he warmed up to the task. Greg did throw in a few double faults, but Henry wasn’t able to take advantage. Greg took the match 6-2 6-0.

Having successfully negotiated the first round Geoff Isaacs & Gideon Stone came across the more significant obstacle of Joseph Rigal & Olly Turner, the third seeds. Geoff and Gideon don’t make too many unforced errors, and Geoff can hit with pace and accuracy. Joseph and Olly hit rather harder, and can force errors from opponents, but make occasional bouts of mistakes.

The seeds won the toss, elected to serve, and roared into a 4-0 lead by hitting hot and breaking both the challengers. At this stage Geoff pronounced that his main aim was to avoid the double bagel, which was clearly a possibility.

Geoff and Gideon had a few words about tactics, to try to stem the flow, and broke the seeds immediately. Geoff then professed he was glad to have avoided the double bagel, but I unkindly pointed out that, if semantics allow a 10-0 loss in a match tie break to count as a bagel, Geoff’s strategy ought to be to lose the first set, having now won a game, as winning it would not prevent a double bagel in the subsequent two sets, but losing the first set would. Geoff agreed with the logic, but wasn’t convinced enough to adopt the strategy.

Subsequently, aided by a higher error rate from the seeds, Geoff and Gideon took another 3 of the next 4 games, to get back on serve and leave Geoff serving at 4-5 to save the set.

Geoff’s service game went to a number of deuces. Towards the end of it, the pressure was telling, because he was getting rather fewer first serves in. Eventually he got broken to lose the set, the seeds taking it 6-4.

Buoyed by this critical success, Joseph and Olly proceeded to win all the games in the second set for a 6-4 6-0 victory.

The last of the scheduled matches was a Ladies’ Doubles between Moira Duncan & Marjan Denis and Lesley South & Jane Boyle. Marjan is the hardest hitter and the most mobile of these, though Moira can put lot of pace on the forehand. But Lesley and Jane are tactical experts at placing balls beyond the reach of opponents. Lesley’s angled shots regularly leave opponents standing, and Jane’s lefty slice drop shots are very effective, even if you are expecting them, so they are a very tricky pair to beat. The strategy for Moira and Marjan would have been not to give balls to Lesley and Jane which would enable them to hit such shots, but this is easier said than done.

Moira played well throughout, being especially consistent on the medium height volleys at the net, though Jane was adept at drop shotting her on her short services. Marjan hit with pace and made the occasional errors. For those in the know, a good summary of the opponents from one spectator was that Jane and Lesley were, well, Jane and Lesley!

The first set was very tight, though breaks were traded. No one could gain an enduring advantage, and the set reached 6 games all. In the tie break, Marjan and Moira played well, and took it 7-4.

In the second set, breaks were again traded. Sitting next to me, Bruce Rigal commented that the set had all the hallmarks of going to another tie break. However, having broken their way back to 4 all, Moira and Marjan broke and Marjan held serve for a 7-6^7-4 6-4 victory.

These pairing definitely take the prize for the best post match photo team racket positions and body stance coordination – and completely unprompted!

Various people did knock up and play social tennis on the grass courts throughout, but they weren’t really playable for tournament matches.

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 7-6^7-4 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 7-6^7-4 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.

There were three Men’s Singles matches played in this period.

J P Doumeng played David Hirst, the eighth seed. Apparently the match was a pretty close run thing. In the early stages it looks like JPD was playing rather better than David.

In the first set, JPD got himself a double break up. David stepped up his efforts, and broke back, and ended up saving 3 set points to get to 5 all, then broke to take the set 7-5.

The second set was of a rather higher quality. This time JPD forced himself to 4-3 up, but David won the last 3 games to take the match 7-5 6-4.

Jasper Tresidder played Dan Dalton. Dan has a decent game, but Jasper has a booming serve (when it goes in) and some really heavy groundstrokes, but can be error prone. It looks like Dan mainly held his own in the first set, which Jasper won 6-3. But Jasper walked away with the second set to take the match 6-3 6-0.

Peter Farrell played the fourth seed Olly Turner. Peter is consistent and pretty mobile about court, but doesn’t have too many weapons to threaten Olly. Olly won the match 6-2 6-2.

In the Mixed, Olly Turner & Jane Boyle played Jasper Tresidder & Margaux Valarche, the sixth seeds. Jasper and Margaux used to attend the same school and were friends there, and this is not the first time they have played together in the mixed.

Note Margaux’s classic service technique in the photo.

Olly & Jane didn’t win enough of their own service games to threaten, and Jasper & Margaux won the match 6-2 6-2.

In the Mixed Doubles, Mark Webb & Lesley South played the seventh seeds Joseph Rigal & Becca Vaughan. Mark is a solid doubles player, but can’t match the raw pace of Joseph, who sometimes plays for the Men’s First Team. Lesley is excellent at placement, including superb angled volleys. Becca is a key member of the Ladies’ First Team with good pace and consistency.

Mark & Lesley had rather a stiff uphill battle to contend with, and could only win enough point for one game, losing 6-1 6-0 to the seeds.

You might think that it is up to the members to protect the West Heath turf from intruders. But it seems we have been getting a little help lately from a very friendly and sociable ginger cat who seems to had adopted us. You have to watch it to the end as the situation develops.

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Don’t forget to sign up on the list in the clubhouse for the delicious Gourmet Dinners Monday to Thursday 22nd to 25th July, and for the Finals Day BBQ in the evening of Saturday 27th July!

Alternatively you can email the West Heath LTC mailbox at westheathltc@gmail.com and we will add your name to the list (provided it is not yet full).

Names of attendees have been blurred out but are visible in the clubhouse.

Note that the menu for Lesley’s supposed “Thai” meal is below:-

Astute observers will notice that it will be, in fact, a Mexican meal, not a Thai meal!!!