This was to be another day of mainly 6-0 or 6-1 sets.
And while there were three Men’s Singles matches played, only one of them was for real! There was also one Ladies’ Singles played.
In the Ladies’ Singles, Kaya Widuch played Marjan Denis. Kaya kicked off the match with two fantastic service returns to break Marjan in the first game, but alongside some excellent winning strokes also made a number of errors. So she got broken too much to threaten Marjan’s progress. Marjan won the match 6-2 6-3.
Joe Smooha played Alan Braier on grass. Joe is a more mature player, and also a keen amateur musician, playing the clarinet in the Royal Orchestral Society, in which Brian Coffey also plays the cello. At a glance, Joe’s game seemed more suitable to a hard court than grass, and his timing seemed to be affected by the lower bounce. Alan is on the membership list as an under 21/student member, though seemed somewhat older than that, and has played at a decent standard for the second team.
Under pressure from Alan, Joe made a number of mistakes, and could not get any games in the first set. But he kicked off the second set with a service hold, though that was it. Alan thus won 6-0 6-1.
Unfortunately, neither can play another match in the next few days. So Alan actually stopped at match point and tried to concede to Joe. After some discussion, Sultan, as on-site referee, was consulted on the possible timescale for the next round match. But, after 10 minutes, when it became clear that neither player could meet the deadlines, they played another point which gave Alan the victory for the record. James Li-Tremble thus gets a walkover into the next round.
Hidden away on hard court 4, out of the prying sight of the spectators, Ashish Nair played Jason Yung. Jason is very keen and highly mobile, throwing himself all over the court chasing lost causes or otherwise, with some decent strokes. However, after his 6-0 6-1 drubbing when playing with Kerry Karageorgis against Greg Meyer & Alan Braier in the Doubles, and possibly also the England match result, he was feeling somewhat subdued about his tennis. Ashish doesn’t play so regularly.
According to Ashish, they both hit good hard strokes and serves, and the real difference was that most of Jason’s went in, and quite a few of his didn’t. So Jason won 6-1 6-1, and is feeling somewhat more bullish about his tennis, at least until he comes to play Alex Vallmajor in the next round. The strong advice from a number of spectators was that Jason should make sure he plays Alex on grass, if he wants Alex to make any mistakes at all.
Fortunately, Jason is available to play the next round, so this match was the one that counted!
The highlight of the evening for the spectators was the final Singles match between David Hirst and Charlie Bergevin. Both are decent players of second team standard. Charlie did not know, but David and the spectators did, that David could not play his next match in the schedule required to keep the tournament on track.
At first it looked like David would win with no problems. He can hit consistent, strong strokes, but also throws in an occasional very hard whack, which either goes in or not, but doesn’t come back. He used this less in the second set, possibly because he was monitoring the success rate and found it not worthwhile. Charlie stuck with the strong strokes without taking undue risks. Both players showed a great deal of tactical awareness of how to manoeuvre an opponent out of position.
David’s “whack” shot had consequences, as he broke a string at one point, which brought to light the fact he didn’t go round with a matching pair of rackets, just a current racket and an older design spare. After the match the spectators noted that the vertical string was broken in more than one place, separated by a couple of intact lengths. Sultan unkindly pointed out that the expected position for a string break was in the centre, rather than off to one side and slightly higher than the sweet spot.
The standard of tennis was very high, with David taking the first set 6-3. Charlie got the upper hand more in the lengthy second set, but David was still highly motivated to get to match point. However, Charlie took the second set 6-3. At this point the contestants enquired as to whether a Champions Tie Break or a third set was required. On being told that the rules said a third set, David decided it wasn’t worth playing a similarly lengthy third set if he was going to have to concede it at match point anyway if he was winning. So he decided to call it a day, with Charlie going through 3-6 6-3 (retired).
It was an excellent match to watch to round off the evening, played to a high standard.
