Henman, Hamilton each qualify for first US Open main draw
Woods-Casey and Chisholm fall short in three battles
Henry Henman and Vaughan Hamilton have qualified for the US Open main draw, with both registering three set wins in the final round of qualifying at the Racquet Club of Chicago on Tuesday, defeating John Woods-Casey and Tim Chisholm respectively.
The day began with the continuation of the second round qualifying matches, starting with the match between Tim Chisholm and Pete Dickinson. Chisholm was slow to adapt to the Chicago court, seemingly half a yard off the pace. He did not read the court as well as he would have expected of himself, with Dickinson launching into big, powerful shots that rattled around him. Dickinson barely missed a ball as he easily built a 5/0 lead in the first set, with Chisholm only managing a modicum of resistance. But slowly, Chisholm’s legs started to work for him again, playing his way into the game and recovering four games before Dickinson finally closed out the set.
In the second set, Chisholm was well and truly out of his rut, slapping the ball at the dedans at any opportunity, and with frightening accuracy. That he wasn’t moving freely into the corners was not an issue as Dickinson was just scrambling as best he could to get the ball back over the net. If Dickinson served short, Chisholm’s punch cut-volley sent the ball sizzling into the forehand corner. Chisholm dominated the set, dropping just one game and sending the match into a third.
Dickinson managed to get some decent shots away to kick-start his run in the third set. He had to absorb the pressure as Chisholm turned in the screws on his forcing, while punching in with a big counterattack whenever the opportunity presented itself. It made for a thrilling finale, as both players edged game by game towards the finish line, refusing to budge from their primary tactics. Twice in the set, Dickinson extended a two game lead, first to 2/0 and then to 5/3, but Chisholm was unfazed and pulled it back both times. Going into the deciding game, Dickinson missed a couple of chances at hitting targets, but Chisholm was clinical each time, calmly sliding the ball into the door to beat a better than first chase to win the match at his first opportunity.
Chisholm’s opponent in the third round would be one of Vaughan Hamilton and Tom Durack, who played off in the final second round qualifying match. Hamilton brought his chaotic energy to the match, playing with a high variance — mixing in some brilliant shots with some poor ones. In order to stay in touch, Durack just needed to keep putting the ball in play and wait for the rash shot to come. But as the match progressed, Hamilton’s errors became fewer and fewer. As he got better, he started dragging Durack around the court on a string, hitting a very good line with all of his shots. There was little Durack could do to stop it, as he found himself struggling right from Hamilton’s return of serve. Hamilton breezed through the second set, setting up his place in the final qualifying round later in the day.
The third round of qualifying then kicked off with a place in the main draw — and a match against Steve Virgona — at stake. The combatants were John Woods-Casey and Henry Henman, both seeking a main draw spot for the first time in their careers. From the start of the match, Woods-Casey was calm and stoic, focussed on playing clean and precise shots, whereas Henman was an erratic hurricane, spraying balls both into the targets but also all over the penthouse. Yet across the first set, it was Henman’s tactics that paid off — as Woods-Casey’s polite responses to Henman’s mistakes were not enough to seize control of the play. After Woods-Casey won the first game of the match, Henman blasted through the next seven, finding out Woods-Casey’s backhand volleys as a particular weakness.
In the second set, Woods-Casey leant into the playbook of serving demi-piques, and trying to hit the follow up straight into a target so as to neutralise Henman’s advantage in the long rallies as quickly as possible. The back-to-basics approach bore fruit, as it dragged Henman into having to play a strong, conventional return of serve as opposed to hitting and hoping at Woods-Casey’s backhand. Woods-Casey extended a big lead in the set, which a late Henman fightback could not overhaul.
Into the third, deciding set, the match tightened up. Henman was more controlled and tactical, not giving in to Woods-Casey’s plans. He narrowly edged a three-game lead, taking each game by a small margin in a long deuce fight. With the lead established, he only needed to hang on for long enough to prevent any comeback from festering. Henman took the set 6/3, securing his spot in the main draw for the first time.
The last of the singles qualifying was between Hamilton and Chisholm, both into their second match of the day. Chisholm was calm in his approach to the play, calculated in his movement and clinical in his shotmaking. Hamilton was the inverse, raw and reactive in his strokemaking yet equally effective. Only when Hamilton was able to draw Chisholm deep into the corners did he look like truly making inroads, otherwise Chisholm was quickly able to establish control and await the misfiring of Hamilton’s weapons. Hamilton was audibly annoyed at Chisholm’s control of the play, feeling as though he ought to be dominating the match easily himself. By trying to force the issue he fed into Chisholm’s game-plan. Even so, Hamilton had just enough tricks up his sleeve to fight most of the set to a draw. No player earned more than a game’s advantage until the very end, when Hamilton finally broke through to take the set 6/4.
The second set was as tight as the first, with Hamilton still trying to overcome Chisholm’s precision at every chance he got. He found his best success when getting Chisholm to play a backhand while on the move. But too often, Chisholm was able to generate decent play onto and around the tambour, eventually drawing an error on Hamilton’s retrieval. Again, neither player earned more than a game’s advantage, with Chisholm eventually taking the set in the 5-all game by slipping a ball into the last gallery to beat a worse-than-last chase.
After taking a short break, Hamilton finally broke through at the start of the third set, curling balls into Chisholm’s backhand corner and getting them to bite down with plenty of cut. Chisholm no longer had the composure to step across and play them, either arriving late and making a racket error or giving up on them altogether. Hamilton sensed he was on top, and stepped on the gas for the run to the finish. He won the final set without dropping a game, securing qualification to the main draw and a date with third seed Nick Howell.
The play concluded with the only match in the doubles qualifying draw, as Jack Josephs and Zak Eadle joined forces to play Tom Durack and Adam Player. Eadle took the back of the court, and was playing like the whole world was on his shoulders. He attacked and attacked, trying to blast the ball through the strings of his opponents. But Durack and Player were able to weather the storm, positioning well and covering everything. After a tight first game, the crowd were treated to some comic relief when Eadle smacked his racket full pace into his backside while attempting a between-the-legs shot. Durack and Player ran away with the first set as the Josephs and Eadle partnership refused to gel.
For the second set, Josephs dropped back from the galleries somewhat, playing a side-by-side formation. The tactic worked, bringing him into the game more and relieving the pressure on Eadle. Eadle’s forcing firmed up too, sending ball after ball whizzing past Durack’s ears. They stretched out to a 5/2 lead, but Durack and Player were always in the game, bringing back two games and sending the next to deuce. Josephs then drew an error from Durack to send the match into a deciding set.
Durack continued to wear forces from Eadle through the third set. The extra pace shook Durack and Player’s rhythm, with Josephs and Eadle winning the battles up and down the main wall. They moved through the set easily, dropping just the one game as they properly learned how to play with each other. Their win sends them through to play Henman and Max Trueman on Friday.
Play continues on Wednesday with the first half of the first round matches. The remaining four first round matches will be played on Thursday.
Match results:
10:00 AM: Tim Chisholm (3) def Pete Dickinson 4/6 6/1 6/5
11:15 AM: Vaughan Hamilton (2) def Tom Durack 6/3 6/1
12:30 PM: John Woods-Casey (1) lost to Henry Henman 1/6 6/3 3/6
2:00 PM: Tim Chisholm (3) lost to Vaughan Hamilton (2) 4/6 6/5 0/6
5:00 PM: Jack Josephs & Zak Eadle def Tom Durack & Adam Player 1/6 6/4 6/1
Order of play for Wednesday (all times CDT):
12:00 PM: Camden Riviere (1) vs Darren Long
1:30 PM: Robert Shenkman (7) vs Nino Merola
5:00 PM: Steve Virgona (5) vs Henry Henman (Q)
6:30 PM: Nick Howell (3) vs Vaughan Hamilton (Q)