On Monday evening there was light, turning to heavy, rain, plus a few showers on Tuesday. Nevertheless, there were three matches played in this period – one of them over 2 days!!
Two matches were played in the Men’s Singles. The following match report is from Joseph Rigal, amended by Peter Davies.
Played over 2 days and on different grass courts, Gabriele Abatti played the seventh seed Joseph Rigal. Gabriele was a little rusty last winter when I played in a match with him, but has some unreturnable serves and shots, with a higher than normal error rate. But he has had months to shake off the rust now. Joseph has a strong game, generally very consistent. Gabriele defeated Joseph’s father Bruce in the 1st round last year, so Joseph was ready to avenge his father.
This was an epic men’s singles 1st round encounter, the only one played so far to go the full 3 sets.
Starting at 5pm on Monday afternoon on Court 2, Joseph broke early to take a 2-0 lead in the opening set, with the single break remaining the difference as it ended 6-4.
In the second set, breaks were traded back and forth multiple times, with the set ultimately culminating in a tiebreak. After Joseph saved a set point serving at 5-6, he serve-volleyed at 6-6 after the change of ends, narrowly pushing a forehand volley wide into the tramline to set up set point on Gabriele’s serve. The Italian duly took his chance, serving a strong unreturned serve to take the second set 7-68-6.
At the start of the third and final set, Joseph quickly went up a double break. At 7pm, after 2 hours of play, with Joseph serving at 4-1, 15-15, the heavens opened and the match was washed out.
Returning to the club on Tuesday at 2pm, Joseph and Gabriele resumed on Court 1 – the area close to the net on Court 2 was still sodden from the preceding downpour.
Both men held serve on resumption of play. Gabriele held to reach 2-5 down, asking Joseph the question by making him serve it out. But Joseph held his nerve by holding to love to see out a tough battle, watched on by father Bruce. Joseph won 6-4 7-68-6 6-2.
Steve (One) Yoo played Eugene Belin. Steve is a pretty useful singles player but doesn’t always play to his own potential and sometimes loses concentration. Eugene has a very consistent game, not making many unforced errors, so tends to have to be beaten. The match was played on a hard court.
Apparently Eugene played very steadily, forcing Steve to focus to win points. This went well for Steve in the first set, which he took 6-1. But in the second set, Steve got broken early, and was down 2-0 as the sun suddenly came out. This maybe helped him to focus before making a come back to take the second set 6-3 for a 6-1 6-3 victory.
Eugene was also on court in a Men’s Doubles where Eugene Belin & Frederick Barkhof took on the second seeds Greg Lim & Sultan Gangji. Greg and Sultan are established first team players with a strong and consistent game. Eugene plays consistently but not with the same pace as first team players. Frederick can play very accurately, with decent pace.
The first set had some close games, but, aided by a couple of friendly net chords, the second seeds the seeds took it 6-0. In the second set, the seeds were leading at the 3-0 changeover. Eugene was telling Frederick, but heard by all, that he had never lost 10 games in a row. Greg duly obliged with a couple of double faults, while Sultan had to resort to some social tennis shots which didn’t pay dividends with some great running by Frederick to take the game. In the end, Greg & Sultan won 6-0 6-2, but at least Eugene’s maximum losing streak is intact!!
