Moira Duncan served a tasty Lamb Tagine, while Marjan Denis provided filled apricots for dessert.
There were five matches played.
In the first Ladies’ Singles semi-final, Posy Frederick played Becca Vaughan, the second seed and champion in 2021. Posy has strong topspin ground strokes on both sides, which she uses to move an opponent around and to pin them to the back of the court. Becca has a good all court game, once it gets going. Neither plays a great deal of singles.
In the first set, Becca started slowly, and Posy had most of the games her own way. Posy won it 6-0.
In the second set, Becca played better, and Posy was not so dominant. Becca was hitting winners and it turned into more of a war of attrition. So Posy had to put more physical effort into the points to win them, and thus made more mistakes, but still won the set 6-4 for a 6-0 6-4 victory, somewhat exhausted. That was the same score as in the previous round, where she defeated Jen Ananda-Rajan, the third seed.
In the other Ladies’ Singles semi-final, Lizzie Johnson, the fourth seed, took on Alex Reyner, the top seed. Alex has a strong game, with a hard hitting serve (and smash) and good groundstrokes, and is lethal at the net. Lizzie is a good all rounder who likely to keep the ball in play and put pressure on opponents to make errors. She has excellent topspin ground strokes off both wings, with the ability to vary the depth accurately. She plays a lot of singles in mixed leagues at Coolhurst, and is very used to the pace which some men can generate on serve and groundstrokes. So she has the skills to handle Alex’s pace. And Lizzie seems to be super fit, perhaps from all the singles matches.
Generally, Lizzie tried to hit 3/4 depth topspin strokes. If Alex came in, Lizzie seemed to have plenty of time to create an accurate top spin lob over Alex’s head. If the lob was too short, Alex put away some spectacular smashes. But most rallies were pretty long. Alex was tired at the end, but Lizzie seemed prepared to run all day, having also played a, perhaps less demanding, Mixed Doubles completion set.
Many games reached deuce, but Lizzie seemed adept a getting the upper hand on the key points. The net of this was a 6-2 6-1 win for Lizzie.
Two Men’s Doubles semi-finals followed. In the first, Sultan Gangji & Richard Keep, 4th seeds, played against Greg Lim & James Li-Tremble, the second seeds and runners up in a tight final last year.
Richard has booming serves and groundstrokes, but is a little error prone. Sultan previously used to partner with Greg Lim, and they last won the title together in 2021, with Stephen Cooke & Logan Mair winning it the last three years. Sultan now thinks he is getting older and a little slower than before, so, in 2025 he suggested to Greg that he should instead partner with James Li-Tremble, to have a better chance of de-throning Stephen & Logan. Indeed, in 2025 the final was decided between Stephen & Logan and Greg & James, only by a 10-8 match tie break, the first two sets having been 2-6 6-2. So Sultan does have a point.
Greg can hit the ball very hard, and normally it goes in too, except against Alex Vallmajor in the Singles quarter final. James has a very strong game, and we will have to see how he gets on against Logan Mair in the Singles semi final.
Sultan and Richard played some excellent points, with Richard in particular hitting one or two impressive winners. But they couldn’t consistently hold serve against Greg and James in either set, and the result was a 6-2 6-2 victory to Greg and James.
For those who prefer just to look at the pictures here, instead of reading the full match reports, we agreed it would make it easier to guess the result if Greg & James had their rackets up, while Richard & Sultan had their rackets down.
In the other Men’s Doubles semi-final, Olly Turner & Joe Rigal, the 3rd seeds, were challenging the supremacy of Stephen Cooke & Logan Mair, the top seeds, who have taken the title for the past three years.
Joe, and Olly (a leftie) can both hit the ball very hard, and Olly’s speciality is poaching at the net. But they aren’t quite as battle hardened and consistent as Stephen and Logan, who have played together in the first team for some years now. Logan disputes my description, on another day, of Richard Keep’s serve as higher speed than his, though we won’t get a definitive rating without a radar speed gun. But all three of Stephen, Logan and Richard are up there in service speed. Logan can disguise many of his shots, so the direction is far more of a surprise. Stephen is tall and can cover the court very quickly, while he also has an excellent serve and ground strokes. But, all in all, there isn’t a lot in it between the two pairs.
The first set went 6-3 to Stephen and Logan. In the second set, breaks were traded to reach 5 games all, but then Stephen and Logan forced a break to be able to take the match 6-3 7-5.
It is going to be an even tighter final with Greg Lim & James Li-Tremble.
The first Mixed doubles semi-final completion took place on grass court 2 before the Men’s Doubles semi-finals. Olly Turner & Lizzie Johnson, the 3rd seeds, stood at 5-7 6-3 against Yannick Tandy & Mart Chojnowska. None of the players wanted to resume after yesterday’s efforts, only to play a 10 point match tie break, so agreed to play a full third, tie break set.
In the event, Olly and Lizzie got off to the faster start. Olly’s interceptions, and Lizzie’s handling of Yannick’s pace, seemed to be the difference, and Olly and Lizzie took the set 6-2, for a 5-7 6-3 6-2 victory into the Final on Thursday.
