Brian Coffey served some delicious Mediterranean chicken (assisted by Lillian, his wife), and Sasha provided cheesecake for dessert.
There were five matches played today, though neither of the two, highly-competitive, Mixed Doubles semi-finals finished!!
In the Men’s Singles, Joe Rigal, one of four fifth equal seeds, was matched in the quarter finals against Stephen Cooke, the top seed and 2025 Champion. Both hit the ball very hard, but Stephen has the height advantage, and is more consistent. Both are very mobile, and both tried to drop shot the opponent at times. But Stephen has the longer legs, which seemingly allowed him to get to short balls he really had no right to get to. Joseph played very well, but struggled to break Stephen’s booming serve (which was made more difficult by Stephen’s height advantage).
In both sets, the score reached 2-3 with no breaks, with Joseph on serve. But at this business end of each set, Stephen kept on the pressure and Joe could not hold serve once thereafter, so Stephen won both sets 6-2 6-2. Stephen’s victory was effectively due to being able to perform better on the big games and points.
The other Men’s singles quarter final played today was between Logan Mair, one of the four equal 5th seeds, and Richard Keep, the 3rd seed. Richard is a leftie, and has some bigger shots than Logan, particularly on the booming leftie slice serve, but is less consistent. Logan has a big, heavy first serve, which doesn’t always go in, and can otherwise direct the ball on the serve with awkward spin. He also can disguise his shots. But give Richard a ball in his hitting zone, with Logan at the net, and Richard will generally pass Logan.
In the first set, Logan had the edge, and maintained his focus to win the set 6-3.
In the second set, Logan broke Richard, but started to feel the pressure when serving for the set and match, allowing Richard to equalise to 6 games all. Richard was then up for the subsequent tie break, while Logan still seemed to be regretting the lost chances (not advisable) on his last service game. So Richard made haste to take the tie break too.
In the deciding set, Logan gave himself a fresh mental start and focused more on knuckling down to beat Richard. While Richard hit some very good serves and winners, he also made errors, and Logan capitalised to take the last set 6-3 and the match 6-3 6⁵-7 6-4.
In the outstanding Ladies’ Singles quarter final, Lucy Fletcher played Becca Vaughan, the second seed and 2024 and 2021 Champion. Lucy is a determined new member who doesn’t make many mistakes, and has to be beaten – she doesn’t conveniently beat herself for you. Becca plays for the ladies’ first team and has good strokes and plenty of experience of matches.
Lucy played consistently, and often forced errors from Becca, but Becca was generally in control of the match, able to work the angles to hit a winner or force an error from Lucy. Becca won 6-2 6-2.
In one Mixed Doubles semi-final on grass court 3, Yannick Tandy & Marta Chojnowska, newcomers from Paddington tennis club, played Olly Turner & Lizzie Johnson, the second seeds. Yannick is a super player, and would merit a top spot in the WH first team, which plays in Division 1 of Middlesex, were it not for the fact he already plays in the Premier division with Paddington. Marta is also pretty good. Olly, a leftie was Men’s Singles champion in 2024, but I can’t find success for him in either doubles beyond the semis. Lizzie has a very solid game and plays a lot at Coolhurst, including in mixed singles leagues, and is highly mobile. She doesn’t make many errors and doesn’t mind pace because of the experience against heavy men’s serves.
Matters were fairly even in the first set until 5 all, but then Yannick and Marta broke (presumably broke Lizzie?) to take the set 7-5. At this point, due to popular demand (because the Logan vs Richard singles had finished) the match moved across to grass court 2.
It seemed to me that Olly and Lizzie were then playing off each other. Lizzie returned almost all of Yannick’s very hard hit ground strokes,, ran, intercepted and hit winners. It seemed to spur Olly to poach successfully and raise his game, and vice versa. Olly and Lizzie won the second set 6-3. But at this point, the light was fast fading, and the court was becoming slippery, so the players decided to call it a day around the same time as the other Mixed quarter final match on court 1.
The players decided they didn’t want to come back just to play a 10 point match tie break, with no one having any chance to get going properly. So, with official backing (no one was going to try hard enough to stop them!), the players will resume on Wednesday night (tonight as of writing) to play a full tie break set with plenty of recovery time before the Mixed Doubles Final on Thursday. So the match is 7-5 3-6 to be completed.
In the other Mixed Doubles semi-final, Sultan Gangji & Jen Ananda-Rajan, the 4th seeds, played Margaux Valarche & Dan Angel, who were unseeded, but knocked out Joe Rigal & Becca Vaughan, the 2nd seeds. The parents of both Dan and Margaux were there to watch the match.
Sultan is an old hand at mixed, with excellent hand-eye co-ordination and anticipation, and doesn’t miss much. Like Jane Boyle, Sultan has won titles at West Heath over 6 different decades, but it isn’t true that his age matched or exceeded the total of the ages of the other players on the court!
Jen has excellent strokes and the timing of her serve is particularly satisfying to watch. But she has to devote a lot of time to her one year old, detracting somewhat from her tennis. However, it seems she and her husband Josh will be based in London, rather than Oxford, for some time now. Jen won the Ladies Singles in 2023 and 2022, among various other Doubles titles.
Margaux has an excellent game, with great mobility, consistency, anticipation and pace, but injuries seem to have prevented her from being able to develop and deliver flat out serves all the time. Dan is a very consistent player using topspin to make very few unforced errors, and is also very mobile, with good anticipation.
The first set was a good ding dong battle up to 6 all. Dan and Margaux won the set tie break 7-5. In the second set, Dan and Margaux reached 5-2, but light was fading and the agreement was to play one more game, to see if Dan and Margaux could close out the match. But they couldn’t, so the match was suspended due to bad light (and a slippery court) at 6⁵-7 3-5.
The match will resume at 6 pm on Thursday. If Sultan and Jen can come from behind to win the second set, then there will be a 10 point match tie break to decide the outcome.
