Eleven matches were played today, so the club was quite busy, but not heaving like yesterday.
In the Men’s Singles, 4 matches were played.
In the first Men’s Singles, Ben Torns played Joe Rigal, one of the four co-equal 5th seeds! Ben is a student who can hit the ball hard, and is working on improving his consistency during the summer holidays, by playing as much as possible. Joe is also a hard hitter. The match must have been very tight, with each set reaching 6 games all to invoke the normal, end of set, 7 point tie break. But in both tie breaks, Joe leapt ahead early, and won them both 7-3 7-3 for a 7-6³ 7-6³ victory. Next year may be Ben’s year, likely.
In the second Men’s Singles match, Charlie Bergevin played Marcio Sugui, the second seed. Both are consistent players who hit hard and use topspin to keep the ball in and under control. Charlie brought himself to everyone’s attention by matching David Hirst in the R64 match. Marcio is a qualified coach and plays in quite a few external tournaments. The match was very entertaining, and all the spectators enjoyed it.
In the first set, Charlie may not quite have worked out how to play Marcio, who won the set 6-3. But in the second set Charlie gave as good as he got and reached 6 all to kick off a normal 7-point tie break. But Charlie fared less well in this, to lose it 7-3 and the match 6-3 7-6³.
The much anticipated Men’s Singles match was between Dan Angel and Greg Lim, as Dan took out Joe Rigal in the 2025 Tournament. So Greg was on his guard. Dan’s parents came up to support him. Dan is consistent and fast around the court, but lacks the hard hitting and excellent eye of Greg, who was mostly able to hit the ball accurately to either of the two corners of the court at the baseline, a foot or two in. Dan won points but couldn’t force regular errors from Greg. Greg won 6-1 6-1 to ensure Dan was not able to upset a seed this year.
In the final Men’s Singles of the day, Luca Fioretti took on Logan Mair, one of the four equal 5th seeds. Luca is a lefty with some good shots, but Logan is a first team player with a good record, and can hit his serves and other strokes very hard. Logan was able to hit winners and pressure Luca into mistakes, though Luca got one game in each set. Logan won 6-1 6-1.
The one match played in the Ladies’ Singles was between Margaux Valarche and Lizzie Johnson, the fourth seed. Margaux is very consistent and fast about court, with good strokes, but can have problems with her serve. Lizzie is a good solid player, and the two of them do sometimes play together in the first team.
Margaux had some difficulty in winning games in the first set, which Lizzy took 6-1. In the second set Margaux made fewer mistakes and hit more winners, to make the set more even. But Lizzie still hit a few more winners than Margaux in this set, which made the difference as she won it 6-3 to take the match 6-1 6-3.
In the early Men’s Doubles quarter final, played on a hard court, Marcio Sugui & Alex Vallmajor played Logan Mair & Stephen Cooke, the top seeds and 2025 champions. Marcio is a leftie. Both he and Alex have consistent topspin games, but don’t hit the ball as hard as Logan and Stephen.
From the score, it took Marcio and Alex a while to get going, and they lost the first set 6-0. But they played far better in the second set to take it to a tie break, which they lost 7-5 for a 6-0 7-6⁵ victory to the top seeds. If you think about it, this is quite a strange score, but that is tennis for you.
The concluding match in the Men’s Doubles quarter finals was between Peter Farrell & Peter Davies, and Sultan Gangji & Richard Keep, the 4th seeds. The Peters have played doubles together before, but not often. Sultan and Richard are an established first team partnership, and rather more match tight. The Peters won points, but didn’t get to more than 30 in a game. There were some good rallies, but generally the seeds were on top. Sultan and Richard won 6-0 6-0.
In the first of two Ladies’ Singles, in an R16 match, Marjan Denis & Megan Kinder played Jane Boyle & Barbara Thomas. This turned into a ding dong battle. Jane is a leftie, and likes slice and dropshots. Barbara has a good set of shots. Marjan has a strong overall game. I haven’t seen Megan play.
Marjan and Megan took the first set 6-4, so there wasn’t that much in it. Jane and Barbara came back to win the second set 6-3, setting up a 10 point match tie break in which they would have had momentum. But Marjan and Megan won the match tie break 10-5 to take the match 6-4 3-6 [10-5].
It felt like all the match tie breaks have been won 10-5, but I checked and it is only 3 out of 4 so far!!
In the Ladies’ Doubles QF match, Kaya Widuch & Susan Grossman played Emily Harrold & Becca Vaughan.
Susan and Kaya are a scratch partnership, while Emily & Becca have played together before and play for the first team. Although there were some good points won by Kaya and Susan, they didn’t add up to any games. Emily and Becca won 6-0 6-0.
In the Mixed, the penultimate R16 match was between Emily Harrold & Peter Davies, playing Logan Mair & Posy Frederick, who were unseeded, but won the Mixed in 2023. Emily and Peter are also playing together off scratch in the Cumberland handicap mixed doubles tournament (which extends over 3 months!)
In the first set, Peter struggled to hold serve, but Emily served well throughout, and held her service game in that set, though the pair could not break the opponents. So Logan and Posy won the set 6-1. In the second set Peter and Emily won two service games and Peter was 40-0 up on his serve, but could not convert this into a third game. So Logan and Posy won the match 6-1 6-2.
