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.
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.
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.
2022 West Heath Club Tournament Finals Day winners, runners up, spectators and special guests
The Tournament draws are now published for the 2023 Club Tournament, taking place between Thursday 13th July and Saturday 29th July. They will also be posted in the clubhouse. Also see:-
Match reports and other information will be posted regularly on this web page (link here).
During the last week of the Tournament there will be the traditional Gourmet Dinners. Finals Day is Saturday 29th July, with the customary Finals Day Tea and evening BBQ.
(The cropped versions and all originals of photos used in all 2022 tournament reports are available from here.)
After a day’s rest from matters relating to tennis, we were all ready for the climax of the West Heath 2022 Tournament. The weather was fine, not too hot, with no rain forecast until the evening, and even then, there were only a few spots of it!
This was fought out on grass court 2 between Cedric de la Chaise, the second seed, who has missed two years of the West Heath Tournament during the coronavirus era, and Marcio Sugui, who took full advantage, in Cedric’s absence, to take the title twice. Marcio plays for a league team in Harrow, while Cedric plays in the West Heath men’s first team.
Greg Lim was the umpire.
Marcio is a leftie, with an awkward slice serve, while Cedric has a good all round game and super mobility, though an injury had prevented him from playing and training for some months until the last few weeks.
Sultan Gangji says that this match was the first played at West Heath with a complement of linesmen covering all lines with appropriate rotation!
The first set started with a service break to Cedric, who held his own game for a 2-0 lead. There then followed a marathon Marcio service game which seemed to last the whole of the first set of the ladies’ singles on the parallel court 1. Marcio won this eventually, but it was symptomatic that his serve was always under pressure. The difference seemed to be that Cedric was comfortable varying things and hitting close to the side lines to put Marcio under pressure and force errors. While Marcio seemed to be using an awkward but similar first serve which Cedric could move to return with few errors in the end, and a lot of Marcio’s groundstrokes in the first set were down the centre or a few feet away from the side lines. Marcio had another service hold to give Cedric 3-2, but after that, Cedric ran away with the set.
In the second set Marcio played better and took a few more risks. The score reach 2 all, and then Marco held, broke Cedric and held again to lead the set 5-2. During this game there was an odd occurrence. Marcio was carrying 3 balls, plus the one he served with, but it was noticeable that, for some unknown reason, he put both of the spare balls in the same pocket of his shorts, instead of one in each of the left and right pockets, as you would expect. During the play one of a ball came out of this pocket, and Cedric lost the point. Cedric could have asked for a “hindrance” as shedding a ball is distracting, but didn’t, although there was a discussion about it afterwards. Clearly the incident wasn’t deliberate, and wasn’t likely to have made any difference to the outcome of the game. Either way, Marcio was on a roll and took the set 6-2. Cedric appeared to be cramping up (or injured), which was confirmed when he stretched one leg against the back of his chair during the interval between sets.
At the beginning of the third set you would have expected the momentum to be entirely with Marcio, but something changed. Marcio seemed to ease up and make more errors, and Cedric got a fresh wind, which resulted in him breaking Marcio a couple of times for a 3-0 lead. This was too much for Marcio to overcome, and although Marcio held and broke Cedric towards the end of the set, it wasn’t enough to stop Cedric winning 6-2 2-6 6-2 to restore his reign of supremacy after the two year break.
Marcio is planning to move back to Brazil before next summer, so this may be the last battle between the two that we see.
This was between Jen Ehr, second seed and ladies’ first team captain and Rebecca Vaughan, top seed and 20212 champion and also a first team player. Rebecca is very consistent and makes few error, but doesn’t have as much pace on her potential winners as Jen might have, while Jen has a solid all round game with heavy and accurate ground strokes. Jen said she was confident if she could serve well.
In the event, it turned out that way. Rebecca was able to hit consistently anything within reach, but Jen was able to serve and return well to put pressure on Rebecca and to hit winners beyond Rebecca’s reach. Though Rebecca won a game when 2 down in the second set, Jen won 6-0 6-1, which is Jen’s first West Heath Tournament win at the second attempt at the singles!
After a marathon three set men’s singles final, this was contested between the fourth seeds, Joseph Rigal & Alex Vallmajor, and the third seeds, Will Maslen & Cedric de la Chaise. Joseph is second team captain, and Alex plays in that team, but Will and Cedric play in the first team.
Joseph has a very heavy serve and groundstrokes, which can sometimes be erratic, but in this match served almost no double faults. Alex has a very consistent and accurate serve and game, but his serve did not have quite enough pace to win cheap points. He put at least one down the line to pass the net player on receiving service. Will and Cedric have both consistency and pace.
The first set was relatively even, with one net break, won by Will and Cedric 6-4. In the second set, Will and Cedric were often able to take the net position against Alex’s service, and this resulted in more breaks for Will and Cedric to take the set 6-2 for a 6-4 6-2 victory.
This took place between the mother and daughter team Margaux & Elena Valarche, third seeds, and Jen Ehr & Katie Baston, top seeds. Katie and Rebecca Vaughan won it last year.
Barbara Thomas did the honours as umpire.
Elena has a an aggressive net game though less dynamic than the others, and Margaux has excellent mobility and is excellent at the net with good all round strokes. Jen and Katie both have heavy serves and are good at the net and Jen has very accurate heavy topspin groundstrokes. And they are an established partnership, battle hardened in many league matches for both Oxford University and West Heath.
The net of all this is that Elena and Margaux had less difficult in holding Elena’s serve with Margaux at the net than the other way around. Margaux chased a lot of balls and returned them well, but couldn’t beat Jen and Katie enough of the time. Elena stationed herself at the net and hit anything that came within reach, putting away a decent proportion.
But it all wasn’t enough to beat Jen and Katie, who won 6-2 6-2.
Jen and Katie thus became the only top seeds in any event to actually become champions. Sultan’s record to the semis (quarter finals for men’s singles) of only one pair of seeds being beaten (and one withdrawal) to that stage looks less good when it comes to the allocation of rank within the seeds themselves. However the top seeds should normally be the previous year’s champion, so there isn’t much leeway there, and the injury to Stephen Cooke threw out a lot of the careful consideration of seeding.
I will admit now to holding an informal draw in which the early spectators (those who arrived before matches started) were invited to tick the winners of each Finals Day event on a draw slip. Perhaps it was too easy, because the majority of the raw slips contained correct predictions. Katie Baston drew one slip from the hat containing the correct predictions, but it produced Sultan’s slip. He turned down the prize on the grounds of being the tournament referee, and Katie drew Jane Boyle next, who received the £5 prize, ending her claimed run of not winning anything!
After the ladies doubles had finished, the traditional extensive Finals Day tea was served
by a special visitor
who also helped out with the presentation of trophies.
In the evening was the Finals Day barbecue. Thanks to everyone who brought food and drink and to those who manned the barbecue. If anyone has any more pictures of the barbecue, please WhatsApp them to me.
It emerged during the evening discussions, that Margaux Valarche and Jasper Tresidder, the 2022 mixed doubles champions, had known each other from school, as they were in the same year group at school.
That is all for this year. Thank you to all the tournament organisers, chefs, players and attendees. And thank you for coming to watch the matches and for reading the tournament reports.
The temperature was a little warmer than the previous 2 nights, but not enough to avoid having to put layers on to eat outside.
Moira Duncan prepared a delicious lamb tagine dinner for the last Gourmet Dinner, but was unable to be present, so Lesley South and Marjan Denis kindly helped out with the culinary work at West Heath (as opposed to the main preparation and cooking at home). Many thanks to all those involved.
The early men’s singles semi-final match started at 17:15 on court 1 and was between Greg Lim, fourth seed, and Marcio Sugui, top seed and defending champion. Greg has strong strokes which often gain more pace by being flat (see video for serve), as opposed to having spin, but unless you get the timing precisely right this tends to result in more errors than spin strokes. However, Greg has a good eye and good timing to match. To get to the semi-final, Greg had to defeat the up and coming Joseph Rigal in three sets, of which the first two were particularly tight. Marcio really loves his tennis and had signed up for a league match later on at his other club in Harrow, hence the early start. He is a leftie with a leftie sliced serve (see video) and topspin strokes. He defeated Ed Fitzgerald in the quarter finals 6-3 6-2.
Because Marcio keeps most of his groundstrokes deep, there was less opportunity than in other matches for Greg to get to the net to win cheap points on the volley with his tall frame. and extended reach Greg played some good tennis, and had his chances. Marcio won the first set 6-3.
In the second set, Greg broke Marcio to go up 2-1. It could have been a combination of Greg’s pressure and Marcio’s desire to close out the match in two sets to get away to play the league match, but Greg was able to take advantage of it. But Greg could not keep his error rate as low as Marcio’s in the next two games, so Marcio equalised to 2-2 and the match reached 4-4. Marcio then won a quick service game, putting the both score and play pressure on Greg, who was broken to give Marcio the match and the place in the final 6-3 6-4.
In the other semi final, Logan Mair, the fifth seed, still with a swollen left foot, played Cedric de la Chaise, the second seed, as he did not compete in the delayed tournament in 2021. Logan’s left foot is still injured, having turned his ankle playing friendly doubles last Sunday, so he has been trying to compensate by hitting more powerful serves and strokes. Logan qualified for the semi-finals when Stephen Cooke had to withdraw from their quarter final match with a groin strain at 1 set all (having tried to serve it out with 3 match points in hand in the second set tie break, after the injury). Cedric beat Alex Vallmajor in a tight quarter final match culminating in an 8-6 victory in the second set tie break. Cedric has a good all-round game and usually ends up as singles champion!
The first set went all Cedric’s way for a 6-1 set as Cedric adopted a policy of moving Logan around, which may or may not have been because of the injury. Logan succeeded in stopping the rot in the second set, reaching 4 all, with points to break Cedric, but couldn’t keep the accuracy up and ended up losing it 6-4 and the match 6-1 6-4.
The next item on the schedule of matches on court 1 was to complete the (only) mixed double semi final between Posy Frederick & Logan Mair, the third seeds, and Jen Ehr & Sultan Gangji, the second seeds. This was suspended the day before at 20:51 due to bad light with Posy and Logan leading 6-4 5-3 (see the last match reported for 27 July.) The match resumed with Jen serving, and Jen and Sultan wrapped up this game. Logan was then serving from the grandstand (!) end, and it was not long before Posy and Logan claimed victory 6-4 6-4, clearing the way for the mixed doubles final to be played.
Mixed Doubles Final 2022
This was played between Margaux Valarche & Jasper Tresidder, unseeded, and Posy Frederick & Logan Mair, third seeds. The umpire was Greg Lim.
Margaux played steadily and kept the ball away from Logan at the net, while Jasper’s shots were a little more hit and miss, and included trick shots including an underarm serve that was not even noticed by anyone, let alone being ruled out by the tournament referee well after the event. Posy played consistently throughout and was particularly impressive for her court coverage around Logan who poached and got drawn wide, requiring her to move to cover well before the opponents hit the ball. Logan hit some good fast serves and shots, but also missed a few that we all expected him to put away, presumably as a result of his foot injury.
Margaux and Jasper broke within the first few games, to take the score to 4-2. At that point there was a fascinating “cat and mouse” point where all four players placed balls to probe what they saw as the weaknesses in the opponents positioning. Both Margaux and Posy demonstrated excellent anticipation, reactions and court coverage. The score reached 5-3. In the next game Posy did a lot of running to cover for Logan, but was unable to prevent the loss of the first set 6-3.
In the second set, there were a number of points where all four players were involved in extended rallies, including some volley-volley sequences, which required high mobility and anticipation from everyone – a delight for the spectators to watch. Logan tried to impose himself at the net, but, perhaps off balance, some potential winners went wide or straight back to the opponents. Margaux and Jasper generally had the upper hand, making fewer errors and consistently keeping the ball away from the net player. Margaux and Jasper won the second set 6-1 to become the 2022 Mixed Doubles Champions, 6-3 6-1.
The grass courts are closed on Friday 29 July to give them some chance to recover, and on the morning of Finals Day, Saturday 30 July to prepare them.
The weather today was again cool and overcast, leading to some dining indoors. Lesley South supplied a delicious Sicilian chicken dinner with gelato brioche desert.
Due to Stephen Cooke’s injury and withdrawal from the tournament, only three matches had to be played today.
The match on court 1 was the ladies’ singles semi-final between Marjan Denis, and Rebecca Vaughan. This was pretty competitive, with a number of deuces not resulting in breaks. Marjan’s strategy included moving Rebecca around to create an angle for an effective approach shot, then come in to volley, and hope Rebecca was under too much pressure to hit an accurate pass or lob, and it worked to some extent. Rebecca was more consistent and could win points in a variety of ways.
The match was tighter than the score indicated, but the score was 6-2 6-2.
On court 2 the first match was between Joseph Rigal & Alex Vallmajor, fourth seeds, and Sultan Gangji & Greg Lim, top seeds and defending champions. This was the only men’s doubles semi final played, as Stephen Cooke’s withdrawal gave Cedric de la Chaise and Will Maslen a walkover in the other.
Joseph tends to have a high error rate on his serve and shots, but a compensating ability to hit winners, a couple of which memorably seemed to occur under Sultan’s racket. Alex is very mobile with good anticipation – very similar to Stephen Cooke in that regard, but with less (or choosing not to make use of) an obvious killer serve. Sultan whacks flat serves down, inducing some errors and when stationed at the net picks off anything reachable with excellent anticipation, winning a number of points that way. Meanwhile Greg hits pacey, mostly flat strokes and uses his height to dominate at the net – he is very difficult to lob.
In the first set, Joseph lost his first service game, and the pair did not recover from that, losing the first set 6-3 on a net break of serve. The second set was must more fiercely contested, with more breaks, and reach 5 all, at which Joseph held and then the pair broke to take the set 7-5 to set up the Champions Tie Break (first to 10 plus winning by two points). This was fairly even at first, but Alex and Joseph started to get the upper hand when it started to matter, taking it 10-7 to win the match 3-6 7-5 [10-7] to dump the 2021 champions out.
The remaining match was the only mixed semi-final played, as Stephen Cooke’s withdrawal led to a walkover to Margaux Valarche & Jasper Tresidder in the other. Posy Frederick & Logan Mair, third seeds, took on Jen Ehr & Sultan Gangji, the second seeds.
Posy and Jen played consistently, serving and returning well, and often having to fill in the gaps behind the man. Both generally were able to keep their returns well away from the opposition net player, though not all the time. Despite his ankle injury from Sunday, Logan moved around the court, poaching in the front of the court whenever he had the opportunity, though not all of these attempts resulted in winners. He also made use of his fast flat serve wherever possible, and it was likely more effective than normal in the increasing gloom. Jen hit at least a couple of passes down the line past Logan when he went too soon for the interception.
The first set was close, though Posy and Logan got a net break to take it 6-4. In the second set, there were some brilliant points where all four players had to anticipate to dynamically back up their partners to ensure coverage of the whole court when one was pulled out of position by a good shot from the opponents – no waiting to see where the ball had been hit then starting to run for it. It is what good doubles have to do from time to time. Posy and Logan looked like they would run away with the set and match after getting to a 5-1 lead. But Sultan held his serve to bring it back to 5-2, then Posy was broken to give 5-3.
At 20:51, with the overcast sky, it was getting very difficult to see, particularly for the older players who might not have been eating their carrots! After a conflab, the decision was to resume in better light the following day.
(Picture will follow on conclusion of the match).
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:-
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.
The weather was a little colder than it has been, and the Gourmet diners mostly had jackets on. Brian prepared a sumptuous Mediterranean chicken and fruit compote, which went down very well indeed. The boost of the night was when a further tray of chicken pieces was produced after everyone thought seconds was finished!
On grass court 1, the first ladies singles semi-final was between Elena Valarche and Jen Ehr. On grass, Elena always prefers to play her tennis from the net, and so it proved today. Jen has good and, more importantly today, accurate ground strokes and a heavy serve.
The match thus tended to consist either of Jen serving, putting Elena under pressure, and moving her off centre enough to hit a winner, or of Elena hitting an approach shot and being passed by Jen either to the left or the right. Elena won points, but no games, for a 6-0 6-0 victory to Jen. Elena asked for another jumping photo, this time with knee kicks to get further off from the ground, and Jen was happy to oblige.
The second ladies’ doubles semi-final was then played between seasoned campaigners Marjan Denis & Ros Norkett, the fourth seeds, and the first team “under 30s” Jen Ehr & Katie Baston, the top seeds. Marjan and Ros have dependable strokes, but not the consistency and organisation of Jen and Katie. Jen often issues tactical commands such as “net” during play to ensure the pair present the strongest formation. However, neither of the top seeds were on top form for this particular match, so Marjan and Ros won a lot of points. That included just about every point I followed whenever it was safe to take your eyes off the close men’s singles on court 2. Marjan and Ros got to a number of deuces, and Katie lost her serve in the first set. But, surprisingly from my random sample of points, yet unsurprisingly from the form and rankings, Jen and Katie won the match 6-1 6-0.
The final men’s singles quarter final was between Logan Mair, seventh seed, and Stephen Cooke, third seed. Both have big serves and groundstrokes, though Stephen’s are more standard than Logan’s. There were a number of service winners, and some more extended rallies where both were jockeying for court position to hit a winner. However, Stephen has longer legs and can get to and return some shots you really think he has no right to reach!
In the first set, Logan started serving. Stephen secured a break around half way through the set, and held on to it until he reached set point. During this rally Stephen slipped when running to reach a short high ball down the centre of the court, and ended up on his backside. He attempted to play the ball from on the ground and just got his racket to it with a fairly feeble shot, whereupon it landed on top of net and just dribbled over to Logan’s side for a winner to take the set 6-4.
In the second set, Logan came into his own and broke Stephen mid set, getting to a 5-2 lead. Stephen fought back to 5 all, then 6 all to force a tie break, but various observers noted afterward that he had started massaging his groin. Stephen reached 6-3 in the tie break, but then let out a groan and had to have a short break to see whether he could continue. Logan felt afterwards that the injury was unfortunate because Stephen had three match points with two serves to come and would normally expect to win from there. After a few minutes play resumed, but Stephen was immobile and thus tried to ace Logan with the four serves he had available. However, it didn’t work, and Logan took the tie break 8-6, at which point Stephen had to withdraw because of the groin injury. Logan thus won “4-6 7-68-6 retired”.
Sorry, no photo for this one!
In theory, that left the needle mother v daughter mixed doubles match between Margaux Valarche & Jasper Tresidder and Elena Valarche & Stephen Cooke. But, very clearly, with Stephen’s groin injury, this wasn’t going to be played at this time. Margaux & Jasper had a friendly eight games against Jen Ehr & Katie Baston so at least they got some tennis in, after warming up a couple of times.
On Wednesday morning Stephen Cooke confirmed he had to withdraw from all subsequent tournament matches, so the unseeded Margaux Valarche & Jasper Tresidder get a walkover into the Mixed Doubles Final on Thursday evening, and the third seeded Will Maslen & Cedric de la Chaise get a walkover into the Men’s Doubles Final on Finals Day Saturday.
To quote Sultan Gangji, “It has been a busy hectic morning dealing with numerous phone calls. There have been more actions/ decisions in the last 2 days than in the past 40 years of refereeing the West Heath Tournament!!!”
As a substitute for the report on the unplayed mixed doubles semi-final match, here is a picture of the West Heath finalists in the Summer Middlesex Cup division 3 team, narrowly losing to Harrow in the final.
The tournament has just reached the break point where only seeded players should remain. Sultan Gangji’s selection of who should be seeded has proved almost perfect this year. The only defeat of (as opposed to withdrawal by) seeds has been the victory of Margaux Valarche & Jasper Tresidder over Marjan Denis & Greg Lim. In the men’s singles, no unseeded player got more than 2 games off a seed in a set.
Yet there are signs that the younger players are challenging strongly. For their men’s doubles quarter final victory, 10-8 in the Champions tie break, Sultan Gangji & Greg Lim had to rely on a forehand error by Steve Yoo and a good serve by Greg Lim – had those two points gone the other way, Sultan and Greg would have been dumped out! Some of the younger men and women are improving fast, as you might expect.
On the Monday evening, it was just about warm enough to dine outdoors. After three fascinating men’s singles matches and a ladies’ doubles, Rachael Gangji provided delicious fish pie and pavlova.
There were parallel men’s singles quarter finals on courts 1 and 2 for the growing crowd of spectators to watch.
On court 1, Ed Fitzgerald, the 7th seed, played Marcio Sugui, the 2021 champion and top seed. Ed is quite a few inches over 6 feet, and has the serve to prove it, along with some powerful ground strokes to match his frame. The only question was whether he could get his forced and unforced error rate down to that of Marcio Sugui, who plays in external tournaments and now has his part 3 coaching qualification. Marcio is a leftie with a tricky leftie serve.
There wasn’t a lot in it in the first set, with Ed’s serve and groundstrokes forcing the win of points and service games, but the statistics were always in favour of Marcio’s more consistent game. Marcio got enough of a look in to force one net service break, which gave him the set 6-3. Marcio produced two service breaks in the second set for a 6-3 6-2 victory to Marcio.
In the second quarter final, on court 2, and easily the longest match, Joseph Rigal, the eighth seed, played Greg Lim, the fourth seed. Joseph is now the men’s second team captain and has improved his consistency a lot over the years, to add to some powerful serves and spin strokes. However, Greg can usually generate more raw pace from his often flat serves and strokes, which should come with a higher error rate. But Greg has excellent timing and a good eye for the ball to compensate. The match was a good battle. Both players approached the net at various times, challenging the opponent to hit a good passing shot or lob, though the latter is often difficult on a grass court with a variable bounce.
The first set was very tight, going to 6 all for a set tie break, which Greg won 7-2 after a few errors from Joseph early on. However, Joseph was pumped up and roared back in the second set, to take it 5-7. However, Greg dug in, and Joseph could not sustain the momentum, resulting in a victory for Greg 7-67-2 5-7 6-1.
My money would be on Joseph to improve enough in the next 12 months to be able to win such a tight match.
In the last of the men’s singles quarter finals, Alex Vallmajor took on Cedric de la Chaise on court 1. Alex has a strong game, but perhaps less experience of pressure singles matches on grass. Nevertheless he clearly was out there enjoying himself. Cedric has an even stronger game, and tends to improve as the tournament goes on, but is seeded second this year as he did not enter in 2021.
There wasn’t a lot in the first set, where both players made a few errors. Alex dropped the occasional ball short, allowing Cedric to hit angled winners out of his reach. Cedric got the net break to win it 6-3.
However, both players cut out most errors in the second set to produce one of the finest sets of singles at West Heath that most of us had seen. Both kept the ball long, and Alex in particular was all over the court to reach Cedric’s placed shots, hitting the ball back with pace and accuracy even when he had to hit it from 3 or 4 inches above the ground. Cedric also raised his standard of tennis to compensate, and there were very few cheap points on offer. However, Cedric reached 5-1 up and had a shot for 30 love, when Alex turned on the style, and played superb tennis to break back and take the set to a tie break.
This reached 6 all before Cedric managed a converted mini-break to take the set and match 6-3 7-58-6. Alex may be another to watch next year.
A ladies doubles semi-final took place on court 3 between Anna Ganev & Penny Isaacs and Margaux & Elena Valarche. Anna is determined and Penny has a variety of groundstrokes including lobs and crosscourt short shots. But Elena has a trick low serve and is a demon at the net and Margaux has both good serves and plenty of fire power in all her other shots.
At one point in the match, Anna was heard to call out “four all”, when all eyes were on the tight men’s singles matches, but it turned out later that she had been joking! There were some noticeable rallies where Anna and Penny got the upper hand and won points, but not enough to make up any games! So it was a decisive “victory to the Valarches“!
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.
There were only two doubles matches played today.
In the first of the matches, Moira Duncan & Lesley South took on the third seeds, the mother and daughter pairing of Elena & Margaux Valarche, supported by a rare appearance from husband/father Antoine. Moira has a strong forehand, and Lesley is famous for her out of reach, angled shots from anywhere on the court. Elena’s main strength is at the net, while Margaux is highly mobile with excellent anticipation and good shots all round.
Elena and Margaux were generally on top, but Moira and Lesley were able to force errors. Although Moira and Lesley could also move the opponents around to create gaps, they tended to miss when going for the resulting winners. In the first set, they got one game on Moira’s serve. In the second set they broke Elena and won one game on Lesley’s serve for a 6-1 6-2 win for the Valarches.
There was then an hour’s gap until the second match, which was a men’s doubles between Gideon Stone & Geoff Isaacs and Joseph Rigal & Alex Vallmajor, the fourth seeds. Gideon and Geoff are experienced players, with plenty of match experience. Joseph is captain of the men’s second team and Alex plays regularly in it. In this match, Joseph in particular seemed fired up, and made a number of unexpected interceptions at the net which produced points.
Gideon and Geoff played consistently and won a number of points with accurate placement, but generally could not match the fire power of Joseph and Alex. The result was a 6-1 6-0 victory to Joseph and Alex.
For a day when rain was predicted, but did not materialise, there were a number of matches scheduled and played, including one which was the upset of the tournament so far.
The early men’s singles was between Rob Curtis and Joseph Rigal. In his men’s doubles with Dan Dalton against Steve Yoo and David Hirst, Rob and his partner had played well in the second set, with some good serving, but they lost 7-5. However, it looks like Joseph’s pace and increasing consistency were too much for Rob on this occasion, and Joseph took the match 6-0 6-0.
Matt Wasser played Cedric da la Chaise, but couldn’t get any traction in the match. Cedric won 6-0 6-0.
JP Doumeng took on Ed Fitzgerald, the seventh seed. Ed’s considerable height advantage allows him a booming serve, with ground strokes to match, so JP had to force errors somehow. He was able to do this some of the time, but was on the defensive too much to gain the upper hand. In the first set, JP got one game and two in the second set for a 6-1 6-2 victory to Ed.
With matching outfits you might believe that David Hirst and Stephen Cooke were on the same doubles team, but that was not the case in the last singles match.
David beat Paul O’Flynn in the earlier round, has a good hard serve, and is capable of hitting hard ground strokes, though this comes with an increasing error rate. Stephen is the third seed behind Cedric de la Chaise and Marcio Sugui, last year’s Champion. Stephen is tall and has an excellent booming serves to match, giving David less time to react than normal. Stephen’s topspin forehand is formidable, and his backhand is solid.
During the play, David couldn’t match the pace and consistency of Stephen. He could hit the occasional winner. However, when trying to put pressure on Stephen his error rate became too high, but there wasn’t much choice but to try, because Stephen was winning the longer rallies. David picked up a game in the second set, but Stephen won the match 6-0 6-1 and will meet either Logan Mair (his doubles partner and 5th seed) or Peter Farrell on Tuesday in the quarter finals.
In a mixed on court 1, Sally Tornow & Richard Nightingale played Penny Isaacs & Aaron Watkins. Sally is a demon at the net, and Richard has a good serve and plays very consistently. Penny’s ground strokes are rock solid and her repertoire includes accurate lobs and cross court short, semi-drop shots. Nowadays she also ventures to the net at times for volleys, and is very mobile moving forward. Aaron both has strong serves and strokes, and is also fast about the court. But this had disadvantages when he tried to poach a deep ball belonging to Penny, who ensured she took it, but made an error due to the interference.
The strategy of Sally and Richard was to play on Penny wherever possible, but she was equal to the task, with an appropriate shot selection to avoid any cheap points for Sally and Richard. Aaron was able to step in to put the ball away from time to time, but generally left Penny to hit her groundstrokes. Sally and Richard were able to win points but not games….
The most interesting match billing of the day was between Margaux Valarche & Jasper Tresidder and Marjan Denis & Greg Lim, the top seeds and reigning champions.
Margaux has a very solid game, including a variety of angled winners at the net, and has recently supplemented this with consistency and pace of serve. Jasper has always been able to hit the ball hard, but his consistency often used to suffer when he did not pay attention to the tactical aspects of a point. However, his judgement and consistency have improved a lot this season. Jasper and Paul O’Flynn caused a mini upset in the men’s doubles by beating Philip and Marc Reid. Further, you would expect Margaux to be a strong calming influence.
Marjan is a solid all round player with strong serve, and Greg is both consistent and capable of generating pace out of the blue on flat serves and ground strokes. Further, he is tall with a long reach, and uses this to intercept effectively at the net on Marjan’s serve.
The first set was strongly contested with no quarter given. Margaux and Jasper secured an early break, but Greg and Marjan broke back and forced a tie break. Margaux and Jasper obtained a minibreak on Greg’s first service point, but could not hold on to it, and matters reached the “sudden death” region at 7 all. The minibreak and set then went to Margaux and Jasper.
The second set was equally strongly contested. Margaux changed tactics returning Marjan’s serve, making some returns down the line and winning a couple of points down the line when Greg moved over to intercept. Margaux and Jasper won the second set 6-3 on a single break to win the match 7-69-7 6-3 and earn themselves a place in the semis. Jasper’s only exhibition shot was a shot behind the back on the final point, which his side obviously won.
Clearly this is the upset of the tournament so far. Whether it signals a changing of the guard in favour of the youngsters has yet to be determined.
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.
Three matches were played today – a mixed and two men’s doubles.
In the early mixed, Terry Heller & Peter Davies took on their second round opponents of Jen Ehr & Sultan Gangji, the second seeds. Terry can be a demon at the net, and Peter is revelling in his new hip (replacement November last year), restoring his previous mobility, and the opportunity to play more frequently and thus more consistently. Meanwhile, with an excellent eye and good anticipation, Sultan can generally make shots whenever he can reach the ball, though can’t jump as high as some when lobbed! Jen has an excellent all round game with the particular ability to hit awkward (for the opponents) topspin forehands to within a couple of feet of the baseline.
Although the challengers got a couple of deuces in the first set, they didn’t translate into games, Jen and Sultan winning it 6-0.
In the second set, Terry and Peter played more consistently and kicked off by breaking Jen to take a 2-0 lead. Again they had deuces in other games, but lost the critical points on which they could maybe have hit winners which would have given them more games. Jen and Sultan took the match 6-0 6-2. A great time was had by all though, which was the main thing, given the likely outcome.
Dr Heller had to rush back home for important medical consultations, so here is a picture of the winning team celebrating their victory. Please don’t look too closely at the baseline.
In the first of the men’s doubles evening matches, Dan Dalton & Rob Curtis played David Hirst & Steve Yoo with no one seeded.
In the first set, David and Steve came out hitting hot, in Steve’s case perhaps with something to prove after his loss in the singles to Leo Colle. Both have demonstrated elsewhere that they are are well capable of doing this, though sometimes the effect can be blunted by a high rate of errors. Dan and Rob took longer to get going, winning a game only after losing five in a row, so David and Steve took the set 6-1.
In the second set Dan and Rob dug in to the extent they took the lead (if I am not getting confused), while David and Steve could not sustain their pace, but managed to get back to 5 all. Viewed from the men’s doubles match next door, it appeared that everyone was cracking down good serves and the standard of play was excellent. But at 5 all, David and Steve just managed the break to give themselves the set and match 6-1 7-5.
In the second of the men’s doubles, Charles Rubinstein & Richard Nightingale played Andrei Cristescu and Peter Davies. Charles is famous for his wily approach to angled shots and placement to make life as difficult as possible for opponents, while Richard is very consistent with a decent serve. Andrei has some good, reliable, heavy groundstrokes and a decent serve, while Peter had his eye in due to the earlier mixed doubles, and both were highly mobile.
In the first set, Charles was exploiting the angles and the pair forced a number of errors from the opponents during the early games. While Peter and Andrei had the upper hand, it took them some time to settle fully to the task in hand. Notably, all their shots aimed close to the baseline were flying just out, though there weren’t enough to affect the outcome of the set, which Andrei and Peter won 6-2.
In the second set, Andrei and Peter played a tighter game, eliminating the errors on shots close to the baseline and were able to exert more pressure. Matters reach 4-0, when gentle rain started. By 5-0 the rain started in earnest, and the match would have been abandoned for a while, but the players toughed it out in the light of the score. Andrei and Peter won the second set 6-0 for a 6-2 6-0 victory, the scale of which surprised some of the spectators.
Peter had an exactly neutral day, losing 6-0 6-2 in the mixed and winning 6-2 6-0 in the men’s doubles! However, trust me, it feels a lot better afterwards to win the last match than the first!
