Smart-Shenkman partnership blossoms into French Open doubles final
Garside to face Fahey in maiden Open singles final
Leon Smart and Robert Shenkman will play Nick Howell and Steve Virgona in the French Open doubles final, after both pairs won through their semi-finals, each dropping their second sets. Meanwhile, Jess Garside will play in her first career Open singles final, as the women’s draw kicked off at the French Open in Paris on Friday.
In the early afternoon, the four-player women’s draw began with up-and-coming junior Lydia Compton-Burnett taking on the World Champion Claire Fahey. Fahey was calm and relaxed, content to push the ball into the corners as she chipped away at the scoreline, never feeling the need to put too much pressure on the ball. Compton-Burnett held her own on balls coming down the middle of the court, but struggled against Fahey’s shot quality when directed into the corners. Though she was able to win a decent haul of points, it never threatened to materialise into a game. In the final game, Fahey’s railroad winning gallery left Compton-Burnett in shock. Fahey’s ultimate victory was confirmed with a cleanly controlled volley into the forehand corner.
The second semi-final saw newly-crowned junior World Champion Katherine Carney playing against second seed Jess Garside. Garside was solid in her play from the beginning, making few errors and playing with a good, positive intent, especially on the return of serve as she attacked the railroad on the volley. Carney was stiff and slow at the start, snatching at the ball instead of guiding it to where she desired it to go. After dropping the first few games, she steadied slightly, and while making less mistakes, still found it difficult to break into Garside’s defences. By the second set, the scoreboard pressure had built on Carney again, as Garside hit an unrelenting length with her shots. A long deuce game at 1/4 down in the second set was Carney’s last opportunity to make progress, but couldn’t deliver. Garside secured her spot in an Open final for the first time in her singles career.
The first of the men’s doubles semi-finals began in the evening with a match between first seeds Nick Howell and Steve Virgona and the young pair of Vaughan Hamilton and Bertie Vallat. Howell and Virgona were a formidable pairing even though it was their first career match as a partnership. Both are used to playing an enforcer role, and the match did not disappoint, with Hamilton and Vallat regularly on the back foot. Their left hand-right hand combination proved particularly effective from the service end as they raced through the first set with little challenge from their younger opponents.
Hamilton and Vallat tidied up their game at the start of the second set and it immediately paid dividends, as they started pummeling main walls to go up 3/1 in the set. They began winning the volleying exchanges and were executing their winners well while Howell and Virgona were still stuck in second gear after having won the first set. At 2/5 down, Virgona kicked it up a notch, channeling Billy the Rat Killing Dog — the mascot of the Racquet Club of Chicago — in hounding and terrorising his prey. It looked as though a comeback might be on, but Howell couldn’t match Virgona in intensity as a couple of errors led to Hamilton and Vallat robbing the set.
Nevertheless, Virgona and Howell carried the momentum into the third set, winning game after game as Howell started to match Virgona’s intensity. Despite that, Vallat was doing his best to advertise his newfound doubles ability to any future potential doubles partners, even retrieving a ball from the winning gallery by slamming his racket into the second gallery post. By the fourth, all four players were firing on all cylinders, with Howell’s forcing game finally coming good. The rallies were long and entertaining, though Howell and Virgona’s quality shone through more often than not. The number one seeds brushed off the last shreds of resistance to book their spot in the final.
The second semi-final was an Essex-tinged affair, with Prested pro Levi Gale partnering Prested alumnus Lewis Williams to play Essex native Leon Smart and Mancunian Robert Shenkman. Shenkman was playing back from the start, defending volley after volley from Gale and Williams. His defense proved solid and reliable, hardly letting a ball go to the back wall as he and Smart led the first set from start to finish.
The second set was more competitive than the first, with Gale and Williams earning a 2/0 lead as Gale started playing with more freedom as the gallery player. Though Shenkman and Smart were able to recover the deficit, Gale and Williams were successful in taking Smart out of the game. Gale was serving full piques to the non-receiver Shenkman, while from the service end, Shenkman was taking the vast majority of the balls while Smart was looking lost floating around the last gallery line. The pairing was rather passive, with neither of them able or willing to play the enforcer role and finish off the rally quickly. Gale and Williams ended up running away with the set quite comfortably.
At the start of the third set, Smart was trying to get involved in the play again. At first it brought several errors but slowly it became more and more effective. As the set and the match dragged on, the toll of the week started to wear on Gale, as he became less and less free and able to move around the court. By the end of the set, Smart was well and truly in the game, and the Shenkman and Smart combination was realising its full dynamic potential. By the time the fourth set reached 3/0, their victory was inevitable, barring a last hurrah from Gale and Williams over the following two games. In winning the match, Smart returned to the final he had played 12 months prior, while Shenkman ticked off another career milestone by reaching an Open doubles final for the first time.
Play continues with the two singles finals to take place on Saturday afternoon, both of which will be fought by the top two seeds in the draw. The doubles finals will then run on Sunday afternoon.
Match results:
12:30 PM: Claire Fahey (1) def Lydia Compton-Burnett 6/0 6/0
1:30 PM: Katherine Carney lost to Jess Garside (2) 1/6 1/6
5:00 PM: Nick Howell & Steve Virgona (1) def Vaughan Hamilton & Bertie Vallat 6/1 3/6 6/3 6/2
7:00 PM: Lewis Williams & Levi Gale lost to Robert Shenkman & Leon Smart (2) 2/6 6/3 2/6 1/6
Order of play for Saturday (all times CEST):
2:00 PM: Nick Howell (1) vs Steve Virgona (2)
5:00 PM: Claire Fahey (1) vs Jess Garside (2)