Gourmet dinners
If you would like to go to the Gourmet Dinners, please reply to the last email about them.
Match schedule for the Gourmet dinners is HERE.
Saturday’s match
Despite the rain, one match still got played. Fortunately, the draws are in good shape at this point.
Brian Coffey & Barry Adamson played Jonathan Bell & Steve Yoo in the men’s doubles. I don’t have a report on this. Jonathan and Steve won 6-1 6-3.
Sunday’s matches
Despite the rain doing its best to keep all the courts wet, four matches were played on the hard courts.
In the mixed, Charles Rubinstein & Eloise Wedgwood had to play the first seeds Sultan Gangji & Jen Ehr. Eloise has been playing 2 or 3 times a week, and improving dramatically. She may well find herself playing for the teams if this continues. She also seems to be superfit, having been on a long (150 mile round trip) cycle ride to the Cotswolds on Saturday, cycling back the day of the match, without it affecting the standard of her enthusiastic groundstrokes noticeably. Meanwhile, Charles’ preparation for the match was more orthodox – he warmed up with Barbara for 30 minutes beforehand. Neither is an experienced team player.
Sultan and Jen are strong players with many team matches under their belt. They made a point of getting to the net wherever possible, and with great success.
Eloise did not give points away easily on the groundstroke rallies with Jen, and Charles hit consistent and well positioned serves and groundstrokes (although he denies the latter). The seeds were too strong, and the challengers got only one or two chances. At one point Charles was 40-15 up on his serve, but thinks his focus wasn’t good enough to convert it to a game. Sultan and Jen won the match 6-0 6-0.
Eugene Belin & Penny Isaacs played the fourth seeds Barry Adamson & Elena Valarche. Penny makes very few mistakes, though Eugene can be less consistent. Elena just likes to get to the net as fast as possible to despatch volley winners. Barry has a fast serve [and a tendency to try to hit passing shots down the line if he can, from playing against him] and served consistently. Elena and Barry won the first set 6-1. In the second set the seeds were 4-1 up, and things weren’t looking too good for the challengers. Penny changed tactics and started lobbing (presumably with Elena at the net) which worked well up until 4 all, but then the challengers got broken and lost the set. Elena and Barry won the match 6-1 6-4.
There was a second match lined up for the winners of the previous match.. So Elena Valarche & Barry Adamson next played the married couple of Dominic Green & Karina Wilsher. Dominic has a good serve, but may not have been giving the match top priority. He had been playing football earlier in the day, and was thus, perhaps, not as fast around the court as he might have been. Karina has some strong groundstrokes, but they are not necessarily that consistent. It sounds like Dominic won all his service games, but that was it for the challengers. Barry and Elena won the match 6-2 6-2.
In the men’s singles, Geoff Isaacs had to play the third seed, Logan Mair. Geoff is pretty consistent, but if Logan was on form, he would have too much power for Geoff. Logan won the match 6-3 6-1.
