West Heath LTC

Although the grass courts were mainly too damp throughout to enable competitive tournament tennis, the rain held off sufficiently to allow play on the hard courts. Both of these were pressed into play where necessary, and ten crucial matches were played, plus one walkover. By the end of the day the grass had dried sufficiently to allow one ladies match to be played on it.

Thank you to everyone who bust a gut to play outstanding matches, which means the tournament is more or less back on schedule for the final five days of play.

Play started at the crack of dawn at 7 am when Jack Arnold & David Hirst played Alex Vallmajor & Alan Calleja, the fourth seeds. A brief match report from David follows:-

“Our power game ultimately lost out to the consistency and excellent net play of our opponents, and we lost 6-4, 6-1”

Then around 8:30 am, partners David Hirst & Elena Pavlidou played Jasper Tresidder & Elena Valarche. Jasper & Elena won 6-1 6-3. The match report from Jasper is to follow.

A morning mixed was also played between Nic Sweeting & Liz Hill and the top seeds Logan Mair & Posy Frederick. The match report from Nic Sweeting follows:-

“A highlight of the mixed doubles saw Liz and Nic (unseeded) take on the top seeds Logan and Posy. The match took place on hard court 5 due to waterlogged grass. Following his exit from last year’s singles, Nic had received valuable advice from finalist Marcio on his grip (namely to change it) and had trained intensively on his serve, so opted to serve towards the Finchley Road.

The service practice seemed to be paying off with some fine serves skidding into the chain link fence putting Nic and Liz up in the opener, but Logan and Posy fought back from game point down to break. The wet court slowed the balls and there followed some slanted winners from Nic when he advanced on short balls to drive them between his opponents or, unchivalrous at the net, at Posy. Posy took Logan to task following a near collision for his ambiguous cries of ‘Okay, okay’, unsure whether her partner meant ‘it’s okay, it’s mine’ or ‘you’re okay to hit that’. But despite Liz and Nic winning a couple of points each game and making few unforced errors, Posy’s accurate winners into the tramlines, imperious net play and angled volleys from Logan, proved decisive as they took the first set 6-0.

In the second set, Logan and Posy’s communication and serving improved still further. Liz kept firing back returns while Nic, receiving inside the baseline, began risking unforced errors in an attempt to beat the person at the net. Rallies became longer with some eye-catching reflex shots, and in his fourth and final service game Nic managed to hold to avoid the double bagel. The thrilling encounter ended 6-0, 6-1 to the top seeds, with onlookers sagely agreeing it looked closer.”

The first of the post-noon matches on hard court 4 was a mixed between Bruce Rigal & Moira Duncan and the fourth seeds Alex Vallmajor & Bianca Gillam. The following match report is from Moira’s verbal report.

Alex is very fast around the court and so consistent that he hardly appears to miss. Bianca is also very consistent and highly effective at the net.

The match was played in quite blustery conditions, though the wind seemed to settle down a little for subsequent matches.

Before either Bruce or Moira had managed to hold their serve, Alex & Bianca had raced into a 4 love lead, but then Bruce held to take the only game in that set for his side. In the second set, Bruce & Moira took advantage of a couple of double faults in the first game to break Bianca, and managed to pick up another game somewhere else. Thus Alex & Bianca won 6-1 6-2.

The next match on hard court 4 was a men’s doubles quarter final between Peter Davies & Mark Webb, and the third seeds Sultan Gangji & Greg Lim, who both play in the Mens I team, of which Sultan has now been captain for 49 years and surely must stay on for another season at least, to get to his half century!!!

Greg not only has almost perfect timing, but is also a demon at the net and is something like 6 foot 2, so it is difficult to keep the ball away from him or to lob him. Mark has some pacy deep forehand groundstrokes, and Peter directed a number of serves well and returned reasonably, but Peter & Mark were just far more error prone than the far more experienced pair at the other end, and it was impossible to keep the ball away from Greg at the net all the time.

Greg served the first game, which started auspiciously for Peter & Mark with a couple of break points. But Sultan & Greg weren’t going to let the break happen if they could avoid it, and clawed the game back to deuce, and then took the game. There wasn’t much joy for Peter & Mark until the second set, when they put together enough points for their one game of the match. Sultan & Greg won the match 6-0 6-1.

In parallel, on hard court 5, Andrei Cristescu played Geoff Isaacs (no relation to Penny) in a very tight match. Both are very consistent, and at 5 all in the first set, it looked like the rallies and set would last indefinitely. At some point, Geoff tried to inject some risk and return into the rallies. According to Andrei, Geoff played some great drop shots, which gave Andrei something different to look at. Whatever, it was, it seemed to do the trick, as Geoff went on to break Andrei and take the set.

The second set was similarly close and extended, but Geoff again got the upper hand eventually to win it 6-4 for a 7-5 6-4 win, after nearly two hours of tennis.

At the completion of the match another problem became crystal clear. Alex Vallmajor had hung around after the previous mixed, so that he could play the next round against the winner of Andrei and Geoff. Geoff said he could not play a further match as his grandchildren (and their great grandfather, his father) were in attendance, and deemed himself to have scratched at match point. But Andrei wasn’t in a position to play the next round either, so that would not have worked. Geoff was deemed to have won then withdrawn, to give Alex a walkover into the quarter finals, which resulted in him feeling somewhat dejected that no one wanted to play him!

However, we are all looking forward to his match against Marcio Sugui at 6 pm on centre court on Monday (24 July).

The next match on court 4 was a singles between Matias Piazza and seventh seed Olly Turner. Both are pretty consistent on a hard court, and Matias often put himself in a position to hit a winner. But Olly plays for the second team and can summon up an extra measure of pace when required.

The first four games were played with no risks taken, as if no one wanted to lose the point and the score reach 2 all. But Olly decided that he needed to make something happen, so started to go for it more, injecting more pace, which shortened the points and resulted in more errors from both. But Olly had the upper hand, and started to hit more winners, taking the set 6-2. This continued into the second set which Olly won 6-1 for a 6-2 6-1 victory. The consensus among some of the spectators was that Matias needs to play more games against players of a higher standard than himself to reach the next level.

On hard court 5, the tall Gabriele Abatti had to play the tournament top seed Marcio Sugui. Before joining West Heath at the start of this season, Gabriele has had six years off tennis, during which he had done some boxing, including Oxford vs Cambridge varsity matches. The consensus is that he has steadily grown in consistency since joining, and that there is more to come. Marcio is a leftie, whose eventual objective is to invest in his own tennis academy in Brazil(?).

From the distance of the grass court, it looked to be a very competitive match. But Marcio took it 6-0 6-1. Gabriele commented that he had put the ball maybe 20 cm out on a number of critical points, which made it very difficult to keep up with Marcio.

A mixed quarter final match followed between Joseph Rigal & Rebecca (Becca) Vaughan and the third seeds Greg Lim & Marjan Denis. The men are both strong hitters, though Greg intercepts better at the net, and is a little more consistent. Marjan has a good all round game, but Becca is more accurate. From the beginning it looked as if the outcome of the match might depend on whether Becca could keep the ball away from Greg when he was at the net.

The first set was pretty even up to 5 all, with Becca and Marjan each broken once. But then Becca was broken again, to give the seeds the first set 7-5. In the second set the challengers Joseph & Becca upped their game, and took it 6-3. The momentum was thus with Joseph & Becca going into the match tie break. During a nervy start for both sides, Joseph & Becca reached 7-2 before Greg & Marjan won a string of points to pull it back somewhat. Joseph still ended up on serve at 9-6 up with two points to serve to close it out. On the first, Marjan returned well and the seeds won the point. But on the second, after a good return from Greg, Joseph (I think) hit a ball to Marjan that looked marginally out. Greg called “leave” to Marjan, but it was too late, and she could not take her racket away from the shot, which ended up in the side netting. Joseph & Becca thus won 5-7 6-3 [10-7] in a very tight match.

Greg Lim had already played two matches (men’s and mixed doubles) in the day, but was now required to step up to a men’s singles match against Alex Taylor. Both have decent games, but Greg plays for the Mens I team while Alex plays for the Mens II. However, Alex has some very useful shots.

Alex view was that Greg’s strategy had been to pummel his forehand, especially on the serve, and Greg seemed to agree with this. In general it worked, as Greg won the match 6-2 6-3.

The last match of the day was a ladies’ doubles, and was actually played on grass, which had just about dried out by then. Julia Abbot & Liz Hill were playing the second seeds Becca Vaughan & Bianca Gillam. In the first set, Julia and Liz managed to hold serve once and broke Bianca, but did not manage a break in the second set. Becca & Bianca won 6-2 6-1.

Phew! I think that is all the match reports from yesterday! See most of you this evening.

Only two matches were played today. No photos were taken.

In the ladies’ doubles, Sabine Casperie & Elena Pavlidou took on the third seeds Marjan Denis & Lesley South. Marjan & Lesley won 6-0 6-2.

In the mixed, partners Dominic Green & Karen Wilshire played Sultan Gangji & Jen Ehr, the second seeds. Sultan & Jen won 6-1 6-0.

Tuesday and Wednesday are all full now, and the notice for Monday is a little late now, but you can still sign up for Gourmet Dinner for this coming on Thursday . See the chefs and cuisine on the picture below.

Any volunteers to create a delectable home made pudding for Thursday would be much appreciated! Contact Sultan or Moira.

Two matches were played late afternoon.

On court 2, there was a tight but swingy (you will see what I mean) ladies’ doubles between Jane Boyle & Elena Valarche and Jenny Warren & Moira Duncan. Jane is a lefty who can produce a lot of slice. Elena likes coming to the net at every possible opportunity, but the pair haven’t played together a lot. Jenny &Moira have played together more. Jenny has a consistent game and Moira has a particularly strong forehand.

In the event it was Jane & Elena who got going fastest, getting to a lead of 4-2. But Jenny & Moira dug in to get the score back to 5 all, then 6 all. Jenny and Moira ran away with the tie break to take it 7-2 for the first set.

But in the second set, Jane &Elena piled on the pressure once more, to take the set 6-2 to bring on a Match Tie Break (first to 10 etc.). Again, momentum swung behind Jenny and Moira who reached a 7-2 lead. Unfortunately for them, this isn’t enough to win a Match Tie Break. That gave Jane & Elena the opportunity to recover the lost minibreaks and equalise the score at 8 points all. In the crucial battle for the last two points, Jenny & Moira secured the minibreak to give them a tight 7-6⁷⁻² 2-6 [10-8] victory.

The match finished at precisely the same time as the men’s singles match below.

The second match played was a men’s singles between Peter Davies and Logan Mair, the third seed. Logan plays for the first team and has a lot of hard and tricky serves and shots. Peter is now 18 months on from a successful hip replacements, is highly mobile and understands how to win points, but has no particularly strong shots to trouble Logan. Peter’s aim was to get one or two games and have a bit of fun. This was helped somewhat by the fact Logan had been up playing golf at 6:30 in the morning, some distance from London.

The match went as you might expect. Logan won most of the points, and hit a lot of winners from loose shots by Peter, but made one or two errors. In particular most of Logan’s fast first serves seemed to be going out. Peter managed to craft a few points, and hit a small number of winners which added up to one game in each set He also set up half a dozen relatively straightforward winners but then failed to execute. But they would not have changed the course of the match. Sultan commented that Logan was made to work for his 6-1 6-1 victory. But not too hard, fortunately, considering his services were required for a tight men’s first team match to be played the same evening. West Heath men’s I beat Globe I 14-10.

After the event, Peter checked the records for the previous match between them, which was a second round men’s singles match in 2017, which Logan won 6-2 6-2. So one game per set was not actually enough to show progress. Never mind!

In the men’s singles, three further matches were played, so there was only one outstanding match (Geoff Isaacs vs Andrei Cristescu) in that draw by the end of Thursday. Unfortunately the weather doesn’t look too good for the weekend and following, so better to get matches played early if possible right now

Bruce Rigal played Gabriele Abatti, watched by Joseph, Bruce’s son, who also supplied the match report (which has been lightly edited).

This was a tighter match than the scores would suggest, and many games went to deuce. But Gabriele was more consistent when it mattered, though Bruce competed well to make it a good match to watch and play.

The spectators were all very surprised when told at the end of the match that Gabriele had won it 6-1 6-0, as it seemed much closer.

Richard Keep, the sixth seed, had a busy day on Thursday. First he played Steve Yoo in the round of 32, winning a tight first set 6-4, but taking the second set more easily for a 6-4 6-2 victory.

Richard then went on to play Philip Reid in the round of 16. The first set of this match was an even tighter affair, reaching 5 all before Richard went on to take it 7-5. But Philip got only 1 game in the second set, Richard winning the match 7-5 6-1.

Jasper Tresider was due to play Marc Reid in the singles, but Marc has injured his elbow, so has had to withdraw. Jasper progresses to the Quarter Final with a walkover over Marc.

In the ladies singles, Julia Abbot played Posy Frederick, the fourth seed. Julia said she struggled with Posy’s topspin, but was able to slice well, according to Posy. Julia had advantage point a few times but wasn’t able to convert it to games. Posy won 6-0 6-0.

Marjan Denis supplied the following match report:-

“Thursday saw the debut of Elena Pavlidou in the ladies singles draw against Marjan Denis. Elena has been hitting with her partner David Hirst, so is used to hitting hard balls back and is very quick around the court with good anticipation.  Marjan had to concentrate on hitting balls back close to the lines, as they were often returned with interest and some good angles.

Even the slightly dodgy bounce in the near side service box didn’t daunt Elena, as most serves were returned.  It was an entertaining match, but experience told in the end, resulting in a 6-2 6-1 victory for Marjan.  The score didn’t reflect the closeness of the match.”

This completes the lineup of the seeds in the semi finals, so Sultan’s seeding worked out perfectly in this event.

In the men’s doubles, Kerry Karageorgis & J P Doumeng took on Paul O’Flynn & Jasper Tresider. Paul and Jasper took the first set 6-3. The second set must have been more competitive, because it reached 5 all before Paul and Jasper broke for a 6-3 7-5 victory.

Also in the men’s doubles, Dan Dalton & Nic Sweeting played Alex Vallmajor & Alan Calleja, the fourth seeds. The match report below is from Nic Sweeting:-

“The glamorous seeded pairing of Alan (Malta) and Alex (Spain) arrived on a high, having played the West Heath Men’s Second Team into promotion on Monday. After imperiously ordering some interlopers to the bullrushes and cholera of Court 3, regular partners Nic (Herts.) and Dan (Berks.), who have racked up over 1000 hours of playing time together since joining the club last year, won the toss and elected to serve. 

Straight away Nic was broken as the continentals swarmed the net, insouciantly smashing away any and all attempted lobs. Further diffident play in the face of Alan’s powerful lefty serve and overwhelming net presence and the Spaniard’s elegant volleys and depth-charge groundstrokes led the British pairing to lose the first set 6-0 in under half an hour.

With a growing crowd on Centre Court and nothing to lose, the Brits finally calibrated their racquets in the second set with improved serving and some well-timed lobs and passing shots on to the baselines and tramlines. At one point they were only 3-1 down after breaking back, but found holding serve difficult, Nic missing a couple of straightforward volleys at the net following some venomous serving from Dan. The games grew tighter and the rallies longer but at 5-1 down Nic faced two match points on his serve…which he successfully fended off, his powderpuff second serve luring his opponents into shots landing beyond the baseline. The match was over shortly afterwards, a heavy British defeat in the best tradition of Scott of the Antarctic and other heroic failures. The final score 6-0, 6-2 to the fourth seeds, Alex & Alan. Alan and Alex advance to a mouthwatering encounter with the winners of a more contentious game on Court 3.”

Aaron Watkins was paired up with Alex Taylor in the men’s doubles. But, close to the end of his trip to the USA, Aaron injured his back, lifting a heavy suitcase on to a high luggage rack. Although Aaron had a couple of try-out games before visiting the physio, the latter has laid down the law and Aaron has had to withdraw from all events. Hence Jack Arnold & David Hirst get a walkover into the quarter finals.

Bruce Rigal & Brian Coffey took on the third seeds, Sultan Gangji & Greg Lim, in the men’s doubles. Bruce and Brian did get a game in the second set, but that was it. Sultan & Greg won 6-0 6-1.

Steve Yoo & Maciek Janowski (both decent players) took on brothers Philip & Marc Reid in the decently close match in the men’s doubles. The first set must have been relatively even up to 5 all, but the Reids then took it 7-5, and went on to take the second set 6-3 for a 7-5 6-3 win.

Meanwhile, Joseph Rigal & Olly Turner, the second seeds, played Kris Engley & Andrei Cristescu. Kris and Andrei must have played very well in the first set, but the seeds took it 6-4. The score in the second set was less even, with Joseph & Olly giving out a bagel to win the match 6-4 6-0.

With both round of 16 matches out of the way above, Philip & Marc Reid became the opponents of Joseph Rigal & Olly Turner. As in the previous match of the Reids, the first set reached 5 all. But this time it was Joseph & Olly who broke, to take the first set 7-5. The seeds also won the second set 6-2 for a 7-5 6-2 passage into the semi finals.

In the mixed, Eugene Belin & Lesley South were drawn against Nic Sweeting & Liz Hill in the (preliminary) round of 32. Nic’s match report follows (very lightly edited):-

“Nic and Liz had played together only once previously, at the second American doubles event of the summer, and their near-telepathic understanding was undiminished in the first set here, quickly breaking their opponents’ first service game and holding serve themselves to take the first set 6-4. Liz’s late arrival after a wine-fuelled luncheon in Chelsea can only have helped.

The second set saw Eugene and Lesley respond with some unstoppable tennis, their angled returns and devastating net play ratcheting up the pressure and forcing errors from their opponents, leading to two breaks of serve. Volleys that Nic had calmly dispatched with clinical efficiency in the opening set now landed well beyond the tramlines as Eugene and Lesley established a commanding 5-0 lead. Inspired serving and some well-cushioned volleyed lobs from Liz swung the pendulum the other way as she and Nic won three games in a row before Nic sent a routine shot well out of bounds to concede the set.

But the momentum remained with the shorter-named pair as they raced into a 5-1 lead at the first change of ends in the championship tie-break, which they went on to win after a late scare. A real game of two halves (plus one fifth or so to allow for the match tie break).

Nic & Liz thus won 6-4 3-6 (10-5), and face seeds Logan Mair & Posy Frederick in the round of 16.”

I hope this report includes all the results, photos and match reports from Wednesday and Thursday (except for one report promised to me for later). However, it was quite complicated, so please WhatsApp me if I have missed something. (Peter Davies.)

There were 6 matches played today, and one was deferred. The draw seems to be progressing nicely, though there are still 4 matches to play past the R32 date in the men’s singles and one in the mixed. Either you know who you are(!), or I don’t know that you have played and don’t have the result.

Kerry Karageorgis has a new infant, and fatherhood still includes interrupted sleep. Nevertheless, he agreed to play his singles against Matias Piazza at 8 am on Tuesday morning, perhaps regretting it after a rough night with a crying baby.

Matias has a good all round game. Kerry is more hit and miss but can hit some decent winners. Kerry commented that he (Kerry) “didn’t show up”, but it doesn’t seem to be that clear cut. Matias held serve throughout the match, and broke Kerry only once in the first set but twice in the second set for a 6-3 6-1 victory. The match was closer than the score suggests.

Also in the men’s singles, Dan Dalton played Jasper Tresider. Jasper said he was feeling rather ill and tired from the men’s 2nd team match the previous night and struggling with the humidity. But beware a wounded animal! Dan had a solid first serve, but occasional double faults lost him a few games. Perhaps surprisingly, considering his comments, Jasper served well and did not miss many returns. 4 or 5 games went to deuce, but Jasper won 6-1 6-0.

Paul O’Flynn took on Philip Reid in the men’s singles. In a slightly different scenario to Jasper, Paul is a surgeon of international repute, had been operating on an Egyptian military patient over the weekend, and had to take a 3 am Sunday night flight back from Cairo to get back to play his tournament match.

The match was close up until 2 all. Then there was a long game on Paul’s serve in which Philip broke. At that point Paul started to run out of energy, and couldn’t mount an effective defence against Philip’s booming serves and wide wingspan to retrieve balls on the other strokes. Philip seems to be well over 6′ 4″. Philip won 6-2 6-1.

Kris Engley played Marcio Sugui, the top seed in the men’s singles. Kris didn’t get any games in the first set, but managed to clock up two games in the second set which resulted in 6-0 6-2 win for Marcio.

Jeff Fine & Penny Isaacs played Brian Coffey & Jenny Warren in the mixed. This would have been an interesting one to predict. Jeff is a wily competitor and has been second team captain in his time but seems to think he suffers from the common tennis malady of “anno domini”. Penny is Ms consistent, who will retrieve most wide balls and return groundstrokes or lobs all day long, and has also been developing a net game. Brian has some good powerful strokes, but also has two artificial hips and two replacement knees and quite a bit of anno domini too. Jenny plays consistently and knows where to hit the ball.

I don’t have a match report, but the first set went 6-3 to Brian & Jenny. Brian & Jenny took the second set too, perhaps surprisingly, 6-0, for a 6-3 6-0 victory.

Paul Rubie & Sabine Casparie played Greg Lim & Marjan Denis, the third seeds, in the mixed. Greg and Marjan are a long standing mixed doubles partnership playing competitive inter-club tennis at a high level. Sabine and Paul are a decent players, but not with the same track record of inter-club competitive matches. Greg and Marjan won the match 6-0 6-1.

Three matches appear to have been played today.

In the singles, Fred Davidson played the fourth seed, Greg Lim on grass court 2, prior to the men’s second team match. No one has sent me anything on this match, apart from the result. Greg won the match 6-0 6-0.

In parallel with the men’s league match on the grass, Barry Adamson & Matias Piazza played a men’s doubles match against the top seeds Logan Mair & Stephen Cooke. Barry and Matias had game points, but fate was unkind in that net balls bounced the wrong side etc., so it wasn’t to be. By common consent, the 6-0 6-0 win by the top seeds does not properly reflect the competitive nature of the match.

Sabine Casparie played Elena Valarche on a grass court. Elena’s view of how to play tennis is basically to get to the net and volley, and she will generally win a match unless the opponent’s ground strokes are good enough to pass her or their lob is good enough. Sabine basically needed to keep Elena away from the net somehow or lob her successfully. Elena can jump a lot higher if it is required to hit a high volley.

Elena won only a few points directly from her service, but was generally successful in chipping and coming in to the net, where she won most of her points. Sabine did circumvent Elena’s strategy some of the time, but it wasn’t enough to stop Elena winning 6-2 6-1.

As it seems to have caused a little confusion, it may be worth pointing out that there are now two “Elena”s in the club – Elena Valarche (with a Russian accent, pronounced “ell” “ain” “ah” with the stress on the “ain”) and Elena Pavlidou (“ell” “en” “ah” with the stress on the “ell”)! However, that is less than half the number of “Alex”es in the club, mostly among the men, and this does not seem to be a major problem.

Saturday 15th July 2023

Following a slow start, when no matches were played on the first Thursday and Friday, the weather wasn’t too friendly on Saturday 15th July. In particular it was very windy. But four brave souls did venture out on to the court.

The first match of the tournament was a mixed doubles played between Barry Adamson & Susan Grossman and the couple of Dominic Green & Karina Wilsher in one of the three round of 32 matches. Due to damp grass, the match took place on a hard court.

The wind prevented a lot of hard hitting, which is Barry’s speciality – no sooner did you line up a shot than the wind put the ball in the wrong place. Honours were even until 5 all in the first set, when Barry & Susan got broken to cede the set 7-5 to Dominic & Karina. In the second set, Dominic & Karina started to get more of a feel for the conditions, and the opponents, and Barry & Susan could not prevent a loss of the second set with no games. Thus Dominic & Karina won the match 7-5 6-0, and face the second seeds, Jen Ehr & Sultan Gangji, in the next, round of 16 match.

During his otherwise excellent visit to the USA, Aaron Watkins strained his back. Presumably, not wishing to let down his partners in the men’s or mixed double, nor let down the WH men’s second team for the match on Monday, Aaron gave Peter Davies a walkover in the men’s singles. Let us hope this allows a full recovery.

Sunday 16 July 2023

As the wind dropped somewhat from the day before, and there were no more than a few spots of rain, quite a few matches were played today.

In an early afternoon mixed, Sally Tornow & Richard Nightingale took on Jane Boyle & Aaron Watkins. Richard played consistently and Sally hit some net winners, but Jane & Aaron were able to break serve and win the majority of the points to take the match 6-2 6-3.

Only one men’s doubles match was played today, between Eugene Belin & Minsuk Jun, and Mark Webb & Peter Davies. Eugene & Minsuk are a new partnership. Minsuk and his wife “Diana” (Dahyun) Nam only joined at the beginning of this season, after some time on the wait list – something West Heath LTC had never had to implement in over 100 years of existence until the 2020 coronavirus lockdowns started! We welcome them.

Eugene plays consistent doubles, while Minsuk plays less doubles and can hit hard, though not so consistently as Eugene. Mark has a strong baseline game, but was suffering somewhat from a late night with his brother the previous evening. According to Barry Adamson, Peter’s strength is the ability to analyse court positions and identify the optimum place to hit the ball to best disrupt opponents.

A few breaks were exchanged before the score reached 5 all, but then Minsuk was broken and Mark & Peter held to win the first set 7-5. During the second set, Mark & Peter were able to hold serve more frequently, and closed out the match at 7-5 6-2.

Six men’s singles matches were also played on the Sunday, giving a good boost to the round of 16 matches which have to be played by Tuesday, though there are still a couple of round of 32 matches outstanding.

David Cohen took on Joseph Rigal, the 8th seed. As yet there is no report on this match, but Joseph won it 6-0 6-1.

Earlier, J P Doumeng took on David Hirst in still blustery conditions. David commented he was struggling to line up to hit winners in the wind, and most of the match was a struggle to make sure shots went in, rather than lose points with errors. Apparently there was one notable rally where JP hit the ball with considerable pace, to be returned by David with interest for a winner. David won the match 6-3 6-2.

Jeff Fine is a wily and experienced competitor. On court 1, he and Alex Taylor had a close first set, but Alex broke one more time than Jeff to take it 6-4. Jeff ascribed the second set to “anno domini” and the fact that Alex plays for the men’s second team. When I pointed out that Jeff had played for the men’s second team for many years, captaining it for quite a while too, Jeff explained that a few decades had passed since then. Alex won the match 6-4 6-0.

Later on court 1, Jack Arnold took on Alex Vallmajor, who is Spanish. Both play for the men’s second team. Alex believes he was inspired later on in the match by the cheers from the clubhouse, indicating the Wimbledon triumph of his fellow countryman, Carlos Alcaraz.

Alex plays a consistent game. Jack’s style of serving consists of first serves and second serves. If the first serve goes in then he has a good start in the point. If not, then the second serve is likely to be an ace or lead to a double fault.

In the first set, Jack’s second second serves were generally going in, and there was only one net break in favour of Alex, who took the set 6-4. But in the second set the second service accuracy and luck deserted Jack, possibly because of the exertions of the tight first set. And, as mentioned above, by that time, Alex knew about the Alcaraz win. Alex took the match 6-4 6-0. Incidentally, that makes the second Alex of the day to win his singles match 6-4 6-0!!

Yet another singles on court 1 was between Nic Sweeting and Logan Mair. Nic’s report is below – but where is the picture? The context of Nic’s remarks about Logan’s tennis kits is that, at the recent West Heath AGM, Logan was strongly pushing that all tennis matches at West Heath should be played in tennis whites, as at the Cumberland. But Logan actually turned out for his match with Nic dressed in black tennis kit and black tennis shoes, before Nic’s intervention.

“Sunday evening saw the hotly anticipated encounter between Logan Mair (3rd seed) and Nic Sweeting (unseeded) in the swaying grasses of number one court. Sweeting gained an early advantage by wearing all white, pushing Mair to change his own shirt. 

Roared on by his fellow second teamers in the grandstand, the unfancied Sweeting won his first service game to love. Mair then did the same. Next the players exchanged breaks of serve before Mair pulled away with some brisk serving to take the set 6-3.

The second set saw Mair’s superior groundstrokes power him into a five-love lead, despite some signs of deftness from Sweeting in getting to a couple of dropshots, and setting up some himself. Using a slice serve into the wind to good effect on the mossy surface, Sweeting was able to win a consolation game.”

In the preliminary round of 64 men’s singles scheduled for 7 pm between Dan Dalton and Minsuk Jun, Dan hit 2 aces in the first game and relied on his serve to win games. Minsuk did not play as well as Dan in the first set, losing it 6-2. However, he must have been more into the match in the second set, taking a 4-0 lead before Dan broke back to take it to 5 all. Dan then broke Minsuk to take the match 6-2 7-5, just in time to avoid getting soaked. They shared 2 pots of glorious beer under a golden rainbow – or was it the other way around?

Also in the men’s singles, Olly Turner was given a walkover by Paul Rubie.

On court 2, Julia Abbot & Peter Davies played the couple Elena Pavlidou & David Hirst. David plays in the men’s second team and can hit hard and hit winners off suitable height mid court balls if he has time to line them up. Elena does not hit the ball hard, but can put away anything within reach at the net, and rarely makes an unforced error, though she does not get to every ball in the same way that David can. David would generally chase lobs and anything at the back, leaving Elena at the net, but also come in to put away mid court high balls where there was enough time.

Julia struggled a little with some of David’s heavy serves, but otherwise played consistently. Peter and Julia tried to play tactically, keeping the ball away from David as far as possible, while also not giving Elena anything to hit at the net. The strategy did not work so well in the first set, not helped by Peter losing his first service game. Though Julia and Peter had chances, they set up Elena and David too many times for winners, which the couple rarely missed.

In the second set the strategy worked better as breaks were traded and the score reached 5 all. But at this point Julia and Peter hit a few loose balls, while Elena and David made no mistake in breaking serve and serving out the match.

On court 2, there was a late mixed doubles match between Phillip & Martha Reid and Joseph Rigal & Becca Vaughan. Becca was possibly intimidated initially by one of the opponents seemingly being nearly twice her height (at least in the picture). Joseph supplied the information for the following match report:-

Although the opponents struggled with Philip’s big serve and hits, there were a few breaks in the first set which ended up favouring Joseph and Becca who took the set 6-4. In set two, Martha was broken twice to put Joseph and Becca up 5-2, but Martha and Philip broke back on Becca’s serve to make it 5-3. On Philip’s big service game, there was some heroic defensive scrambling from Becca in one particular point to nullify Philip’s big hits. This set up her and Joseph for the first break of Philip’s serve, to win 6-4, 6-3.

Last chance to book for theThursday Gourmet Dinner!

There are Gourmet Dinners Monday through Thursday (25th through 28th July). Various celebrated West Heath chefs (some ex-professional) will be cooking excellent cuisine as follows:-

• Monday 25th, Rachael Gangji – Fish pie and pavlova for pudding
• Tuesday 26th, Brian Coffey – Mediterranean chicken
• Wednesday 27th, Lesley South – Sicilian buffet, includes chicken and a vegetarian option
• Thursday 28th, Moira Duncan – Lamb tagine

There is space for 30 or so diners at each of these,cost £15 (see sheet), including nibbles, main course, dessert and wine. Sign up on the sheet in the clubhouse near the kitchen, or you may miss out!

Here is the menu for Lesley’s Sicilian buffet on Wednesday 27th.

All pictures and videos used in this year’s tournament reports, including the uncropped originals, plus a few more, are available from this Dropbox folder link.

On a day, which started off threateningly sunny and hot, the temperature never made play unbearable, and conditions were pretty good for tennis, with the possible exception that it was a bit windy with the wind blowing down the grass courts towards the club house. The decent weather was just as well, because seven matches were played today, nominally one starting on each hour – three men’s doubles, two mixed doubles, one ladies’ doubles and one men’s singles!! This completely cleared the backlog of matches, leading to ideal scheduling for the second week. See the “Second week matches” post above. One of the matches was a real hum dinger too….

The first match was a men’s doubles between Andrei Cristescu & Peter Davies, and Logan Mair & Stephen Cooke, the second seeds, both men’s first team players. The situation was complicated a little by Logan’s ankle sprain, after turning his ankle the day before when on the third or fourth set of a friendly “round robin” men’s doubles game. His mobility was clearly restricted, but Stephen was well capable of running round him in most situations. Although Andrei and Peter are well capable of consistence of hitting against mid court medium paced balls, Logan and Stephen were not delivering many of those, and the challenger error rate was thus much higher than normal. This manifested itself in the five balls which ended up in the adjoining gardens due to mishits. Though two were recovered early on, and Sultan supplied an extra nearly similar ball, by the end of the match, there were only two balls available.

Andrei and Peter couldn’t get any traction on their serves. On Logan’s first service game, Peter was able to despatch two of Logan’s wide forehand topspin serves for side line winners hitting the fence by the path to get a couple of break points, but Logan knew what was going on and cut out that option. The challengers got to deuce one or two more times, but that was their lot. The pace of Logan and Stephen prevented them from hitting their normal shots, and Logan and Stephen won 6-0 6-0.

The next match was on court 1 and was a mixed between Penny Isaacs & Aaron Watkins, and Elena Valarche & Stephen Cooke. Penny is mobile and very consistent on the ground strokes, while Aaron is well capable of hitting winners, but did not feel he was playing to his full potential in the match. Some of the spectators also thought he was too gentlemanly in being reluctant to hit the ball near Elena with pace to increase the chance of winners. Elena stationed herself at the net as far as possible, and relied on Stephen to chase balls all over the court, which he generally returned with interest. Stephen also is too tall to lob easily, which doesn’t help.

Penny and Aaron hit a few winners, Penny performing a curtsy to acknowledge the applause of the enthusiastic crowd after one of them, though there was inevitably more clapping for the more numerous winners of Elena and Stephen. The result was a 6-1 6-1 victory to Elena and Stephen.

Jumping lessons are available from Elena.

Next was a men’s doubles on court 2 between Jasper Tresidder & Paul O’Flynn taking on Cedric de la Chaise & Will Maslen, third seeds. Jasper and Paul can hit the ball very hard indeed, but often this intent is accompanied by a high error rate. In their first round victory against the Reid brothers, both had played controlled, consistent tennis to ensure the victory.

Will and Cedric started slowly. In particular, during the first few games, Cedric made a lot of errors, leaving the challengers 3-1 up with break points for a 4-1 lead. However, Cedric and Will started to get their eye in, and the challengers started to feel the pressure, resulting in more mistakes and the additional break did not occur. After that, although they were still able to win points, Jasper and Paul could not retain enough consistency to get the points to add up to games. The net result was a 6-3 6-0 victory to Cedric and Will.

The ladies’ doubles match on court 3 was between Jane Boyle & Eloise Wedgwood, and the fourth seeds Ros Norkett & Marjan Denis. Eloise has certainly improved since last year, while the other three are very experienced campaigners. Jane and Eloise played some good tennis, but their serves were always under pressure, and the other shots didn’t always go in, while Ros and Marjan were more consistent when it mattered the most. Ros and Marjan won 6-3 6-2.

On court 2, Peter Farrell took on Logan Mair, the fifth seed in the men’s singles. When he played me (Peter Davies) Peter played very consistently and produced a lot of good first serves. However, he felt under a lot more pressure playing Logan, who can whack the ball quite hard to make it difficult to time a shot against him. The pressure of this ensured that Peter did not get anything like the first serve percentage against Logan that he got against me. However, he was still prepared to chase down every ball, and battle for each point to the end, though his accuracy again suffered due to pressure not to give Logan any easy balls from which to hit winners. In the event, this being his second match of the day, since turning over his ankle the previous day, Logan was not as mobile as he usually is, so Peter won points and games in each set by sticking at it. Logan won 6-2 6-2.

The penultimate match was a men’s doubles on court 3 which turned into a real nail biter. Steve Yoo & David Hirst took on last year’s champions and top seeds, Sultan Gangji & Greg Lim. Both Steve and David have good serves and decent strokes, though not maybe the consistency of Sultan and Greg.

Steve and David both served well in the first set, and managed to break and hold on to win it 6-4, against the odds. In the second set, Steve and David seemed to make more errors, but they still broke and held early on to get ahead 3-0. But at this point, Sultan and Greg dug in and fought harder for their crown. This succeeded to the extent of winning the next 6 games to take the set 6-3, preparing the way for a Champions Tie Break [first to 10].

In this, one minibreak each was exchanged to take the score to 3 all, and again one minibreak was achieved to take the score to 8 all, but thereafter, Sultan and Greg took the next two points to take the match 4-6 6-3 [10-8]. The only real difference seemed to be the higher level of experience of Sultan and Greg in such positions, with the challengers not getting first serves in when it counted the most.

The last match of the day was a mixed doubles between Joseph Rigal & Jane Boyle, playing the third seeds Posy Frederick & Logan Mair. Joseph had played like a demon at the net in his men’s doubles with Alex Vallmajor against Gideon Stone and Geoff Isaacs, and we were all expecting a similar performance in the mixed. However, it was Jane’s second match of the day, and she has won titles in six separate decades, as has Sultan (parse these statements carefully). Meanwhile, for his third match of the day, Logan still had a swollen ankle, and Posy is a very consistent player, playing in the ladies’ first team.

In the event, Logan was accurate enough to keep the ball away from Joseph when he was at the net, and he couldn’t have the impact necessary, either on his serve or elsewhere. Posy supported Logan well. Jane played a good supporting role, but missed a few leftie shots down the line which we all expected her to get.

The challengers made more of a game of it in the second set, but couldn’t find enough winners to win the set. Posy and Logan won the match 6-1 6-3.

A number of matches were played today, not to mention a couple of walkovers (see draw).

An early match played was the men’s singles between Nicholas Sweeting and Marcio Sugui, the top seed and last year’s champion. There haven’t been any reports on this match. But, much as expected, Marcio won it 6-1 6-0. A couple of first team players felt Nic had done well to get a game off Marcio because they also struggle to do this when playing him at singles!

This evening was mainly a mixed doubles session, with one mixed match on each of the three courts.

On court 1, Susan Grossman & Matias Piazza took on Elena Valarche & Stephen Cooke, the fourth seeds, who won in 2020, but did not enter in 2021. Susan hit some good shots, including one or two awkward lobs over Elena’s head. Matias had to do most of the ball chasing and executed this pretty well, not making a lot of errors. But Stephen is very tall, with long legs carrying him fast around the court. So he was able to reach most of the shots into any part of the court not occupied by Elena, including any drop shots from Susan and Matias, and generally return the ball out of reach of the opponents. Meanwhile, as expected, Elena got to the net as much as possible to put away anything that came close enough. Elena and Stephen won 6-1 6-0 and await their next opponents to emerge from the first round match.

On court 3, Moira Duncan & Bruce Rigal played Margaux Valarche & Jasper Tresidder. Although Bruce had only just returned from Canada, there was no obvious trace of jet lag, and both he and Moira were playing as well as they think they can. Margaux was serving well, and also keeping Jasper in order on court, so he didn’t execute his first hot dog until the last game of the match. The pair of youngsters not only have good anticipation, but also are very fast about the court.

Moira and Bruce found it very difficult to hit the ball anywhere where Margaux and Jasper could not get to it, whereas the reverse just wasn’t true. The best way to put it is that Moira and Bruce won points, but not games.

On court 2, and last to finish were Eloise Wedgwood & Charles Rubinstein vs Jane Boyle and Joseph Rigal. Compared to her 150 mile cycle ride to warm up properly before last year’s mixed doubles match, Eloise was very restrained, but has been playing early morning as much as possible subject to availability of partners prepared to play at that hour. Charles is wily and experienced. After the match, both seemed to think their partners were playing better than them! Jane was solid, and Joseph is gradually adding consistency to his power game.

In the first set, Jane’s consistency and Joseph’s pace generally put them on top, though Charles was able to win points off Jane’s serve to the deuce court with some fine angled cross-court returns out of reach, and Eloise did not make many unforced errors. Jane and Joseph won the set 6-2. According to Charles, Eloise and Charles made a tactical error in switching sides for the second set, which nullified some of the potential winners from their side. Jane and Joseph thus won the second set 6-0 and the match 6-2 6-0.

Meanwhile, Leo Colle and Alex Vallmajor decided to play their men’s singles on hard court 4, a move which I felt favoured the more consistent Alex, the sixth seed, who plays regularly for the second team. Although Alex did make mistakes, Leo was not able to capitalise on them in the first set, which Alex took 6-0.

In the second set, Leo won his first service game, but Alex’s placement seemed to be the more accurate, and he went on to win the rest of the games for a 6-1 6-0 victory.