Smart sneaks into IRTPA Players' Championships quarter final despite dedans onslaught from Williams
Fahey puts on exhibition against Sayers; Hamilton falters against Virgona
The members of the Aiken Tennis Club have thoroughly appreciated their dedans netting being firmly tied down, with an onslaught of shots hitting the largest target in the final matches of the first round of the IRTPA Players’ Championships with three matches featuring tight, deciding sets.
The first round matches continued with Pete Dickinson taking on recent World Championship Challenger John Lumley. Lumley did not need to get out of first gear, gently wafting around the court and tapping the ball back as though giving a drill session to a member of the Racquet Club of Philadelphia. Dickinson wasn’t able to go with him in the rallies, often trying to close out with an attempted winner or rash shot which usually resulted in an error. Lumley won the first set in barely 11 minutes, with several of Dickinson’s five points coming from shots on the dedans. The second wasn’t much better, as Lumley started sending in some forces of his own. Dickinson won his only game at 0/5 down, long after the result was a certainty.
The next match was between Steve Virgona and Vaughan Hamilton. It was Virgona’s first match since the French Open just over two weeks prior, where he had broken his wrist in the singles final and played with a large cast through the doubles. He took to the court in a redressed cast, slimmed down and red in colour, with a matching, long red sweatband on his opposite wrist. Unlike in Paris, his cast didn’t prevent him tossing the ball for a railroad, though he couldn’t pick balls out of the dedans tray with his right hand. He was still restricted insofar as he could only use one hand on his backhand volley return of serve, where he would normally be double-handed.
Hamilton was trying his best to take advantage, keeping his railroad tight and launching for the dedans where possible to try and encourage a weak volley response. Even so, his play was hot and cold, playing with long runs of impressive tennis interspersed with back-to-back questionable strokes. Several times through the first set, Hamilton threatened to break away, firstly with several points for a 4/1 lead and again at 5/4 with deuce before Virgona, without flair or showmanship, drew the scoreline back. By the deciding game, Virgona took the lead for the first time since the very first point, winning with his third set point.
Despite having dropped the first two games of the second set and having a history of throwing matches away after going behind, Hamilton rallied for the next three games, earning a 3/2 lead, only denied a 4/2 lead by Virgona winning a short chase. Instead, a double-fault allowed Virgona to recover to 3-all. From there, the cracks started to widen in Hamilton’s game, as Virgona steamrolled the next couple of games. Despite Hamilton saving a match point by beating a better than half yard chase, Virgona sealed the deal a few moments later with a main wall dedans of his own.
The next match was a rematch of the final from the last time the event had been held back in 2019 in Wellington, which on that occasion saw Robert Fahey defeat Bryn Sayers in straight sets. It was also a rematch of the 2015 final from Holyport, where Fahey was victorious by the same scoreline. Since then, both players were playing on artificial hips. As had been the case in his three Satellite matches, Sayers took some time to get those hips to be fully firing, with Fahey’s famous cut-volley causing issues for Sayers from the start, with any of his loose serves being punished. His opportunity to stay within touching distance in the set was when he had 3 game points at 2/4 down, having just won the previous game, and was returning to the service end. But the unrelenting accuracy of Fahey’s returns quickly put any notion of a fightback to bed.
Despite his long career, it was Fahey’s first competitive match at Aiken,1 so when he started to unleash his force in the second set the crowd lapped it up every time. Sayers was not opposed to hitting targets himself, as he opened the second set with back-to-back games helped by Fahey finding the penthouse a few too many times. Fahey quickly recalibrated, bringing the set back to evens. The passage of play towards the end of the 3-all game saw eight consecutive restes ended with balls struck into winning openings: including six dedans from Fahey, and a grille and winning gallery from Sayers; before finally ending with a hazard chase. Fahey retook the lead in that sequence. Sayers saw off Fahey’s match points in the 5/4 game with some decent dedans hitting of his own. In the deciding game, Sayers won two chases then brought up a set point of his own with another main wall dedans, which Fahey defended by putting a couple of tricky balls around the tambour. Changing ends with a worse than last gallery chase on Fahey’s next match point, he was not going to miss out on a juicy ball off the back penthouse, keeping his record of not having lost a knockout first round match since the 1990s alive.2
The final match in the first round was between Lewis Williams and Leon Smart, both coming off disappointing losses in the French Open to Levi Gale. Keeping to the theme of the week, Williams, despite having lost in the first round of the Satellite, had the stronger start opening up a 4/1 lead. But for the next three games, he was perhaps playing a bit too cute, trying to open up flashy finishes rather than percentage tennis, allowing Smart to get on top of the play, with considered target hitting and few errors. Smart brought the set to a decider, immediately going 30-0 up as he successfully fended off two early chases. But Williams then smacked three straight balls into the dedans to bring up set point. Smart finally got a racket to the next ball, with Williams losing the rally by missing an attempted thick boast. Williams found two chases to go to the service end at deuce, but couldn’t defend one of them, with Smart finding a dedans of his own to win his first and only set point.
Smart left the court for a break before the second set. Williams responded to the disappointment of the previous set well, striking winner after winner through the start of the new set, with errors, while still present, becoming rarer. Williams took at 3/0 lead, and after Smart fought back a game, smacked three more back-to-back dedans to hold onto the advantage. Smart was having trouble with balls off the main wall, and as the scoreboard situation became more desperate, so did his strokeplay. By the end of the set the errors were piling up, and so was Smart’s desperation. Williams secured a seemingly comfortable 6/1 scoreline, but with plenty of work still to do.
Smart took another break following the third set, allowing streaming guru Ryan Carey to adjust his on-court cameras while Williams tried to stay warm. The target hitting did not slow down into the third set, but Smart’s rallying play had noticeably improved, more easily able to work Williams over and draw an error. Smart was even able to punctuate through with a few dedans of his own, winning four of five games to earn a 4/2 lead. But Williams’s force would not be silenced, with some backhand slap shots into the dedans thrown in as well for good measure. He was throwing himself around the court to keep alive, grunting each time, bringing it back to 5-all on the back of a Smart double fault off a bobble.
The final deciding game opened with a hazard chase, before a main wall tambour gave Smart the advantage. Williams hit forces off Smart’s railroads for the next three shots, with two hitting the dedans netting and one into the actual net. The fourth clipped over the top of the net, giving Smart a ball to hit under the grille, bringing up match point. Playing off the hazard, Smart shanked Williams’s tight railroad up onto the penthouse. Williams cut the ball under the winning gallery ledge, but Smart read the cut and was able to slide the ball into the second gallery point to win the match.
Play continues from the Aiken Tennis Club on Friday with four quarter-final matches, with the semi-finals and final to be played over the weekend.
Match results:
12:00 PM: Pete Dickinson lost to John Lumley (2) 0/6 1/6
1:30 PM: Vaughan Hamilton lost to Steve Virgona (6) 5/6 3/6
5:00 PM: Bryn Sayers lost to Robert Fahey (5) 2/6 5/6
7:00 PM: Leon Smart (7) def Lewis Williams 6/5 1/6 6/5
Order of play for Friday (all times EDT):
12:00 PM: Camden Riviere (1) vs Steve Virgona (6)
1:30 PM: Robert Shenkman (8) vs John Lumley (2)
4:30 PM: Nick Howell (3) vs Robert Fahey (5)
6:00 PM: Leon Smart (7) vs Ben Taylor-Matthews (4)
Excluding any exhibitions. The records of Fahey’s match results in the 1990’s are patchy, but the author can confirm no competitive matches singles or doubles matches were played at Aiken since at least 2001.
Fahey did lose a non-knockout first round in the 2017 Champions Trophy. Again, the records of his match results in the 1990’s are patchy.