TENNIS
Amherst finals day: a sporting familiarity
By Hugh Sullivan
Most adult tennis club competition in Sussex is in doubles – the winter season about to commence has no singles contests at all. It’s no surprise, then, that the leading players at Amherst’s annual club championship finals last Saturday know each other’s styles so well: they are accustomed to playing together as partners rather than opponents.
Far from detracting from the competitiveness of the six finals matches played over the course of the afternoon, this mutual familiarity bred both a high technical standard and a keen desire to win on the part of each contestant. The atmosphere was one of immaculate sportsmanship and genuine respect. Players not only made their own line calls with no line judges nor referee required; opponents’ winning shots were applauded from the other side of the net. A large gathering of current club members, enticed to the sidelines by tea, cakes and an open bar in the clubhouse, were equally sporting in their appreciation.
Dylan Preece and Amanda Ruck won respective men’s and ladies singles titles, then combined to become mixed doubles champions too in the closest of contests.
Men’s final
Preece’s opponent in the men’s singles final, Quentin Soucek, is his regular doubles partner in the Amherst club team. Both are essentially baseline sluggers, but showed off contrasting ground strokes – Soucek playing for the most part easy, relaxed top-spin shots, Preece hitting flatter and with less margin for errors but making precious few of them. With neither player armed with a big serve or risking more than the occasional sally to the net, rallies were often long drawn out. In numerous exchanges Soucek would seem to control the point but find himself unable to put away a clean winner; Preece would defend doggedly, then unleash a pinpoint passing shot on the counter-attack, either cross-court or down the line. Many games went to deuce, but Preece gradually took command to win the first set 6-2. The second swung first one way, then the other, and reached 5-5 before a tiring Soucek lost his rhythm and surrendered the final two games.
In the ladies singles, Amherst team captain Jane Garrett faced Amanda Ruck, long time champion of The Green club in St Leonards, and competing as a member of Amherst for the first time. Ruck had defeated past Amherst champions Nikki Crowhurst and Pearl Hare in reaching the final, and dispatched Garrett 6-1 6-1 in a one-sided contest.
Doubles contests
Garrett and Crowhurst gained satisfaction, however, in teaming up together to win the ladies’ doubles. Garrett’s canny placements allied with Crowhurst’s hitting power on both backhand and forehand sides proved too strong for their opponents, Hare and Karen Cunnington, as they won 6-3, 6-2.
In the men’s doubles, Soucek and Preece wiped the sweat off from their long singles match to team up together against the veteran pairing of Mark Cunnington and Andy Chapman. Cunnington’s crisp volleying and Chapman’s all-round consistency combined to overcome their younger opponents 7-6, 6-3.
Then, as the temperature dropped and evening shadows lengthened, the two singles champions Preece and Ruck fought the closest contest of the day against Mark Cunnington and Crowhurst in the mixed doubles final. The match went to a third set championship tie-break before Preece and Ruck squeezed home 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (10-8).
Earlier, the over-60s mixed doubles title had been won, also on a championship tie-break, by Nigel Williams and Karen Cunnington. The over-45s mixed doubles final was held over to another day.
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