There was delicious fish pie from Rachael and tasty strawberry pavlova from Lara, and 7 matches were played. We start with the Ladies Doubles.
In a 4 pm afternoon match, Margaux & Elena Valarche played Marjan Denis & Megan Kinder in the last of the Ladies’ Doubles quarter finals. Margaux has strong strokes, excellent court coverage and good tactical nous. Elena’s serve keeps low and she operates on a “chip and charge” basis to get to the net as soon as possible. Marjan has a good all round game, and I don’t know about Megan!
(According to Elena) in the first set, Margaux made the difference, with the opponents not able to find a counter to her court coverage and Elena’s approach to the net. Margaux and Elena won the set 6-1. But in the second set Marjan and Megan found their range to lob Elena, to get the upper hand, winning the second set 6-3.
All was set for the deciding 10 point match tie break. Margaux and Elena focused on drop shotting Megan more when she was at the back of the court, and this broke the momentum and enabled a decisive early lead for Margaux and Elena, who reached 9-2, then 10-3. Margaux and Elena won the match 6-1 3-6 [10-3].
In the follow up Ladies’ Doubles semi-final match, Margaux & Elena Valarche played Alex Reyner & Posy Frederick, the top seeds, though a new WH Tournament doubles partnership. It was a big ask for Margaux and Elena to make an impression on the top seeds, particularly after a hard fought quarter final earlier in the day. Alex and Posy quite rightly took advantage and won 6-1 6-1.
However, note that Elena had enough energy left to jump for the subsequent match photo.
The other Ladies’ doubles semi-final match was played between Becca Vaughan & Emily Harrold and the second seeds Jen Ananda-Rajan & Lizzie Johnson. The first set was very tight all round, and resulted in a tie break which was won by Jen and Lizzie. But Jen and Lizzie then seem to have walked away with the match in the second set, winning the set 6-1 for a 7-6 6-1 win.
In the first of the Men’s Singles semi-finals, Alex Vallmajor, one of four equal 5th seeds, took on Greg Lim, the fourth seed. Greg had played excellently, with few errors, against Dan Angel, who is highly mobile and consistent, in the R16 match the previous day, and was thus the on form favourite against Alex. As against this, Alex has very consistent topspin strokes with little risk of errors, and plays mainly on hard courts. Because of the extended very hot and dry spell, the West Heath grass courts are playing more like hard courts than normal, though still in reasonable condition. So Alex wasn’t far from his normal hard court comfort zone.
In the end, Greg just couldn’t keep down his error rate for whatever reason. Alex kept up his consistent defence, hit a few winners of his own, and took advantage. But the precise corner shots Greg had used to beat Dan the day before just weren’t going in now. Tennis is not a timed sport, so if Greg had been able to recapture his consistency at any stage of the match, he could still have won it. But it wasn’t to be. Alex took the match 6-3 6-4, and had every right to be very pleased with his performance, as in the photo.
In the second Men’s Singles quarter final of the evening, James Li-Tremble, one of four equal 5th seeds, took on Marcio Sugui, the second seed, most recently winning the Singles in 2023, and Runner Up to Stephen Cooke in 2025.
This was a very high powered, close match.
James plays regularly for 1st team in division. He has a very strong game, with power ground strokes and returns. He reported after the match that he made far too many errors (see later).
Marcio is very competitive and plays ITF singles tournaments in his own age group. Marcio had his chances in the first set whilst James had not settled down. But Marcio plays his league matches elsewhere in Lower Divisions and was not used to the power of return of serve and ground strokes coming from James. Once James settled down, he started dictating the match, and the result was predictable.
James won 6-3 6-4 – despite believing he made too many errors in both sets!!
Interestingly, that was an identical score to the other quarter final reported above, in which a fifth equal seed also beat a higher seeded player.
In the 2 pm last R16 match in the Mixed Doubles, Matt Wasser & Sophia Melas played Olly Turner & Lizzie Johnson, the third seeds. Matt & Sophia struggled bravely, and Matt did well to hold his serve once in the first set. But otherwise the seeds had it all their own way. Olly and Lizzie won 6-1 6-0.
Fresh (or not so fresh) from their 4 pm victory, Olly Turner & Lizzie Johnson, the third seeds, went on to play the unseeded Logan Mair & Posy Frederick, who won the Mixed in 2023. So it didn’t seem like a straightforward match for the seeds.
And so it emerged, Olly and Lizzie got off to a poor start, and after 8 games found themselves 3-5 down with Olly to serve next. Olly managed to hold serve and was expecting Logan to serve out the set. But Logan double faulted a couple of times and Olly and Lizzie broke back to level at 5 all.
At this point, Logan started missing more. Ollie and Lizzie got themselves into the zone, and started playing more aggressively at the net. taking ten of the next 11 games to win 7-5 6-1.
Note that Lizzie is now the only player left who could potentially pull off a “triple crown” or “victor ludorum” by winning all three eligible events.
