Last night, the Gourmet Dinner was delicious lamb tagine prepared by Moira Duncan, with some help from lamb slicers Greg Lim and Marjan Denis. Katie Baston contributed tasty home made cheesecake and some individual posset desserts.
The order of play for the rest of the week can be found here.
There were 6 matches played in total.
- 14:00 LD QF Liz Hill & Julia Abbot vs Margaux & Elena Valarche (3)
- 18:00 MS QF Greg Lim (5) vs Olly Turner (4)
- 18:00 MS QF Philip Reid (6) vs Alex Valmajor (3)
- 18:30 LD SF Becca Vaughan & Katie Baston (2) vs the winners of the 14:00 match!
- 19:15 MS QF Joseph Rigal (7) vs Richard Keep (2)
- 19:15 MXD QF Jasper Tresidder & Margaux Valarche (6) vs Alex Vallmajor & Katie Baston (3)
The entry for the Ladies Singles and Doubles events has been disappointing this year. Certainly, a lot of ladies who work tend to be very busy around this time, perhaps due to the holiday absences of others. But there was certainly room for another 2 entries in the Ladies’ Doubles, and 3 in the Ladies’ Singles before anyone would have had to play more than 1 preliminary match (QF or before) in advance of the Gourmet Dinner evenings and Finals Day matches. Some ladies, who did not enter these events, have commented that, had they known the draw would be so sparse, they would have entered as the extra match load would have been easy enough to schedule. Next year maybe!!
The first match was played early afternoon and was a Ladies Doubles 1st round match (quarter final) between Liz Hill & Julia Abbot, and Margaux & Elena Valarche, the third seeds.
Julia Abbot was still a little hung over from the drinking on her last evening of the week spent cruising around Norway, ending with breakfast on the ship that very day! Margaux was fitting the match in between regular teaching slots after a weekend away.
Julia and Liz were in it more for the fun and experience, and to avoid the double bagel if possible, but the Valarches’ street cred would have been considerably diminished had they lost, so it was altogether more serious for them. Julia reckoned she did fewer (if any!) double faults compared to the opposition, but Julia’s good serves had less impact than Margaux’s. One problem Liz and Julia had was that they would hit the ball seemingly out of reach of their opponents only to find Margaux got to it with plenty of time to line up a very awkward response, if not an outright winner. Elena apparently spent most of her time at the net, winning points but making the occasional volley error.
Julia and Liz did get to deuce at one point, but couldn’t convert it to a game. The result was the dreaded double bagel, won by the third seeds. But, as Julia pointed out, at least she and Liz warmed up Elena and Margaux for the next round, to be played that evening.
Elena in particular was cock-a-hoop with the win.
As there was no one else there, the match photo had to be a selfie. However, even Elena, ever enthusiastic about photos of jumping, couldn’t work out how to take a selfie of all 4 players jumping, so Liz and Julia declined. I’ve never seen Elena so high!!!!
Three out of four Men’s Singles quarter finals were played in the evening, with two of them starting out at 6 pm.
On court 1, there was a much anticipated clash of the 4th and 5th seeds, Olly Turner and Greg Lim. This seemed to be a particularly hard hitting match with Greg using a a number of flatter shots on serve and ground strokes to generate maximum pace, while Olly generally belted the ball as hard as he could with a little topspin on the ground strokes. Greg had a slightly higher error rate, and Olly took the first set 6-4.
In the second set, perhaps as a consequence of the cumulative exertions of the heavy game played by both in the first set, Greg’s error rate on serve increased slightly, which let Olly in to Greg’s service games a little more, and Olly won the set 6-2.
On court 2, the somewhat rusty sixth seed, Philip Reid, was drawn against the third seed, Alex Vallmajor. Philip took some time to get into the match, and to get his heavy serve and ground strokes working, while Alex played his normal consistent topspin game. The first set was somewhat uneven, with Alex taking it 6-1.
In the second set, Philip played with more consistency and seemed to approach the net rather more, though it didn’t necessarily win him the point all the time, as Alex’s has extremely good mobility came to the fore – although there is an example of him trying to smash Margaux later on. Alex won a much more competitive second set 6-4.
I hope Alex realises he has just beaten the still-reigning, one and only, West Heath Tournament Junior Singles Champion! We look forward to Philip’s work and family commitments enabling him to play rather more tennis next season and the rest of this season.
Following on from Philip vs Alex, the next match on court 1 was between Joseph Rigal, the 7th seed, and Richard Keep, the 2nd seed. Richard plays in first team matches and sessions with other team players when he is around.
According to his dad, Bruce, Joseph didn’t play much tennis during the 4 years he was at university in Chicago. However, on his return to the UK, Joseph wanted to make up for lost time, and plays at least 8 days each week, judging from the times I go to either West Heath or the Cumberland and he is invariably there – or so it seems. Not only that but his jobs have involved watching a significant quantity of tennis by top players. So it is perhaps to be expected that Joseph is improving significantly over time.
This was another match between two big hitters. Joseph goes for it on most shots. Richard serves big, though sometimes misses, then capitalises if he needs to. Some double faults by Richard allowed Joseph to break in the first set, whereupon Joseph kept his cool, winning the first set 6-4.
One big difference from previous times and matches is that, although Joseph did double fault and make mistakes in this match, he did not allow it to disturb his concentration for the next point, on which he was also more confident that his improved level of play should give him an edge.
In the second set, Joseph was playing really well, while Richard did not play to his capabilities, as he could not rely on enough cheap service points to make his service games easy. Joseph won the second set 6-1 for a 6-4 6-1 victory.
Either having a good memory (he certainly has compared to me), or perhaps having taken the trouble to look it up beforehand, during the match itself, Joseph was aware that, when he last played Richard, in 2019, the score was 6-4 6-1 to Richard. This acted as a particular spur to Joseph in the second set, to help Joseph keep up the pressure to secure the mirror image result. So the 2024 result wasn’t entirely co-incidence!
If you were wondering how both players ended up looking so fresh, be aware that the photo was taken at the beginning of the match, not the end!
The quarter final wins by both Joseph and Olly guarantee that there will be at least one second team player in the Men’s Singles Final on Saturday, as they now play each other in the semis.
The match on court 3 was the first of the Ladies’ Doubles semifinals between Margaux & Elena Valarche, third seeds and winners of the 2 pm quarter final, and Becca Vaughan & Katie Baston.
At the far end, Becca kicked off serving into an awkward sun, and was broken, with Margaux and Elena holding serve. It was very clearly easier to win points at the near end of the court. Elena adopted her usual position at the net, while Margaux made it look easy to cover the rest of the court. Becca and Katie hit the ball hard and tried not to make errors. But in the first set, Elena and Margaux were in pole position and stayed there until they took it 6-4.
Becca and Katie made fewer errors in the second set, to develop some momentum, while the Valarches could not avoid errors. Becca and Katie won the set 6-1.
In the match tie break the points were relatively even until around 5-4 to Becca and Katie. But they then put on the pressure and zoomed ahead to take it 10-6 to win the match 4-6 6-2 [10-6].
Waiting for the match involving Margaux and Katie, the last match to kick off was a Mixed Doubles quarter final between 6th seeds, Jasper Tresidder & Margaux Valarche, and 3rd seeds, Alex Vallmajor & Katie Baston.
Jasper and Margaux are school friends who have played together a lot before and understand each other’s game well. When Jasper is playing consistently he has a booming serve, and good groundstrokes, with an effective drop shot, and prefers to play a flashy hot dog shot if possible. Alex and Katie have not played together before. Alex is a very consistent hitter employing good pace and a lot of topspin. He is also a superb mover and retriever of lost causes, but Margaux succeeded in doing to him what he does to others – making them wonder how someone could possibly get to a seemingly out of reach ball then hit it back for a winner. Katie wins a lot of points from the pace of her serves and groundstrokes.
Given this was her third match of the day, Margaux didn’t seem to be at all tired. She played many good angled volleys and other winners.
The match was pretty tight, revolving around small margins. The first set went 6-4 to Jasper and Margaux, both playing pretty well.
The second set reached 5 all. In the final game Alex had a chance to put a crucial point away with a smash, and thought he had succeeded, but Margaux chased it down outside the deuce court, with Alex getting a second chance. Again a decent smash, but this came back again from Margaux who won the point and her side took the game, resulting in a 7-5 set. The final score was 6-4 7-5 to Jasper and Margaux.
