Virgona and Howell into Champions Trophy final
Taylor-Matthews's loss deals blow to World Race chances.
Steve Virgona and Nick Howell will play for the Champions Trophy title, having both won their semi-finals in three sets at the Royal Tennis Court on Saturday. Howell’s defeat of Taylor-Matthews dealt a major blow to Taylor-Matthews’s chances of qualifying for the World Eliminators as he battles Virgona for fourth place in the Race.
The first semi-final saw the two Australian veterans, Robert Fahey and Steve Virgona, take to the court, extending their rivalry into a fourth calendar decade, going back to the 1990s when Virgona was a promising young star from Ballarat. Over their nearly 50 previous match-ups, Fahey had won at a rate of three to one, including in two World Challenges. Given that, one may have expected that there would have been nothing the two former doubles partners wouldn’t know about each other’s games, yet they still spent the first part of the first set trying to outfox each other with unusual boasts or ambitious volleys. Virgona was the more measured of the two, not giving in to Fahey’s antics and maintaining his consistent hitting, gaining the upper hand on the scoreboard. Trailing in the set 5/1, Fahey tapped four balls into the net to give away two double faults in order to start the next set at the service end.
Fahey leant into his force in the second set just as he had done against Nick Howell in his first match. Virgona responded by playing a very high court position, covering both the volley and the missed force. But that gave room for Fahey to play around him, generating the angle into the back of the court. Virgona’s response was to play the easy ball as a drop shot, but that brought with it several unforced or unfortunate errors. Fahey won the first four games of the second set, with the state of the scoreboard alone neutralising Virgona’s attack.
Virgona found better success at the start of the third set, homing in his serve along the bottom plank of the penthouse. He broke his losing streak, establishing a two-game buffer. Fahey was at full stretch trying to recover the deficit, but Virgona was defensively solid, holding on for most of the set. However, Fahey was able to step up to another level, playing shots befitting a former World Champion to bring the scoreline back to 4-all. Then he got too ambitious, launching himself at the ball too often and finding the net or the penthouse, with Virgona happy to mop up the aftermath. In the final game he struck back-to-back grilles to bring up match point, slotting the final ball down the forehand to qualify for his first career Champions Trophy final.
The other semi-final saw the unusual arrangement whereby the top two seeds, Nick Howell and Ben Taylor-Matthews, met before the final — a consequence of Howell’s loss to Fahey in the early rounds. The intrigue around the World Race continued too: with Virgona progressing to the final, a loss for Taylor-Matthews would cost at least 1,784 points — and possibly as many as 4,013 — of the 6,367 point advantage he held at the start of the tournament in the battle for the fourth eliminator berth.
After a nervy first few games, Taylor-Matthews settled into the rhythm of the match, successfully restricting the biggest excesses of Howell’s forcing play through tight railroads and persistent consistency. His backhand-to-backhand play manoeuvered Howell around until Taylor-Matthews saw, and pounced, on his opportunities. Though Howell initially had a 2/1 lead, Taylor-Matthews was ascendant through the rest of the first set, controlling the service end throughout and sealing the set with a grille.
The play got somewhat testy in the second set, with both players chuntering to themselves when their shots didn’t meet their high standards. At one point Howell tossed his racket at the wall, protesting that “it slipped” when challenged by the marker. Though Taylor-Matthews had the early lead in the set, Howell’s target hitting proclivity gave him the advantage instead. Howell got on top of Taylor-Matthews’s railroad, slamming everything he could into the dedans — with anything that missed ending up in the grille instead. He scored four games in a row, which proved the decisive advantage to even up the match. Taylor-Matthews’s shot control fell away through the third set as the match slipped away. Howell sensed blood, sending an almighty barrage of balls at the dedans. Howell won the set easily, qualifying for his third consecutive Champions Trophy final.
Match results:
12:30 PM: Robert Fahey (3) lost to Steve Virgona (4) 1/6 6/1 4/6
2:30 PM: Ben Taylor-Matthews (2) lost to Nick Howell (1) 6/3 3/6 1/6
Order of play for Sunday (all times BST):
11:30 AM: Steve Virgona (4) vs Nick Howell (1)