It looks like no matches were played on the rather wet Wednesday.
There was plenty of entertainment for the enthusiastic spectators on Thursday.
On the grass, Jack Burgess played Stephen Cooke, the fourth seed and 2019 doubles title holder. We don’t know for sure whether Jack had ever played on grass before, but he commented at the end of the match that he was just getting going, on the sixth game of the second set, when the match ended without him clocking up any games.
On hard court 4, David Cohen was playing Steve Yoo in the men’s singles. Steve was concentrating wonderfully in the first set, and managed to win it 6-1. This continued in the second set, which he led 5-0 and match point. At this point, not only was a mixed doubles waiting to go on court 4, but also his wife and kids walked by to distract him (or so he claimed). The rot set in, David dug in and put the pressure on, and won the next three games. However, Steve did then regain his composure to take the match 6-1 6-3.
Taking over on hard court 4 was a mixed match involving Moira Duncan & Howard Kingston vs Marjan Denis & Greg Lim, the top seeds this year, since Andra Marinescu, who won it with Marcio Sugui last year, is living temporarily in Surrey. Howard’s service is particularly effective on a grass court, so it is a bit of a surprise he allowed himself to play on a hard court. Howard and Moira did their best, and managed to break Marjan twice. They also held Howard’s serve twice, but that was it, for a 6-2 6-2 victory to Marjan and Greg.
On the grass, there was also a men’s doubles, with Brian Coffey & Gideon Stone taking on the third seeds, Jeff Fine and Geoff Isaacs. This must have been quite a hum-dinger. Bionic Brian (hip, two knees and both eyes, apparently) and Gideon took a closely fought first set 6-4 to worry the seeds. The seeds dug in to take the second set to 6 all, and won the tie break (anyone remember the score?). Gideon has less excuse than the others, but the other three players must have had senior moments at the same time, as no-one remembered that there was supposed to be a Champions tie break at one set all in all the doubles events. Anyhow, the score in the third set reached 2 all when Sultan intervened to remind everyone. Brian and Gideon went on to win a tight Champions tie break 10-8, to provide the first upset of the tournament.
