Lewis Williams and Josh Smith will face off in the IRTPA Satellite final, after both won through their semi-finals at Aiken on Monday evening, with Max Trueman falling agonisingly short despite leading his match comfortably.
The first semi-final saw Max Trueman take on the first seed Lewis Williams. Trueman’s confident target hitting and heavy cut immediately had Williams on the back foot. The Tuxedo pro blitzed through the first set, winning it quickly despite some late recovery from Williams. Williams reset for the second set, building a small lead having to continue to work hard on his defensive play. Trueman pinned it back, keeping his foot on the accelerator all the way to a 5/3 lead instead. His control never gave Williams the space or freedom to play his big, expansive shots. A game away from defeat, Williams managed to get a few forces away while Trueman struggled to close it out. Williams took the next two games relatively comfortably to set up a deciding game. Trueman opened with a pair of chases which split one apiece. Williams responded with a pair of chases of his own, the first of which was called chase off at two yards, but the second he won by generating enough angle to pick the error from Trueman. He then closed the set moments later with a backhand grille.
Into the third set, Trueman was still the player with the initiative, something he never had lost throughout the match to that point. He won the first two games, but Williams’s resistance was growing stiffer. Beating a short chase with a dedans at deuce seemed to fire Williams into an extra gear. Despite Trueman’s continued resistance, he could only find a single further game in the match, with Williams pushing on to victory.
The second semi-final was between the two unseeded players, Josh Smith and Pete Dickinson. Dickinson’s fast feet and nagging retrieval kept the ball alive long enough for Smith to make an error. He didn’t give Smith many easy shots, keeping the ball off the penthouse and away from the middle of the court. Dickinson won the first three games of the match. Smith found some counterplay, threatening the targets and drawing Dickinson in to the volley. His changes of paces and deft touch on the serve also had Dickinson under more pressure as he won the next five straight games, even though no games were blowouts. Dickinson stole one back after saving set point in the 5/3 game, but Smith’s march was otherwise uninterrupted. Smith relaxed into the second set. His strokeplay got more assured, picking off targets easily and becoming largely unbothered by Dickinson’s retrieving. Every now and then, Dickinson would pull off an unexpected, unretrievable ball but it didn’t stop Smith’s constant accumulation of points. It took until the sixth game of the second set for Dickinson to put another notch on the scoreboard, but by that point the match was out of reach, with Smith cruising into the final to play his future colleague.
The final of the Satellite will take place on Tuesday, followed by the main draw of the IRTPA Players’ Championship commencing from Wednesday.
Match results:
5:00 PM: Lewis Williams (1) def Max Trueman (4) 3/6 6/5 6/3
7:15 PM: Josh Smith def Pete Dickinson 6/4 6/1
Order of play for Tuesday (all times EDT):
4:00 PM: Lewis Williams (1) vs Josh Smith