|
|
|
Semi-Finals :
(Finals order of play: XD, WS, MS, WD, MD, from 14.00 Sun)
WS: [1] Liz Cann bt Nicola Cerfontyne
21-18, 21-10
XD: [1] Robertson & Wallwork bt [3] Adcock & White
21-14, 13-21, 21-12
XD: [2] Clark & Olver bt [4] Middleton &
Agathangelou 16-21, 21-14,
21-16
MS: [1] Rajiv Ouseph bt [4] Harry Wright
21-5, 21-17
MS: [3] Carl Baxter bt [2] Andrew Smith
21-13, 21-15
WS: [2] Helen Davies bt Sarah Milne
21-19, 18-21, 21-12
WD: [1] Wallwork & White bt Lim & Robertshaw
21-14, 21-19
WD: [2] Agathangelou & Olver bt Davies & Ward
21-16, 21-15
MD: [2] Adcock & Blair bt Ellis & George
22-2-, 14-21, 23-21
MD: [1] Clark & Robertson bt [4] Langridge &
Middleton 17-19, 21-19, 21-17
Richard Eaton Reports:
(or just
scroll down to read it all)
Men's Singles: Baxter conquers 'weird' Smith
Women's Singles: Cann's success helps purge the pain
Men's
Doubles: Clark's record bid saved from the dead
Jenny
Wallwork: Double challenger for first time
Quarter-Finals Reports |
|
 |
Semis Roundup
First up in the penultimate session of play was top seed Liz
Cann against surprise semi-finalist Nicola Cerfontyne. Cann
built up a substantial lead in the first but Cerfontyne ate into
it, getting as close as 18-17, but Cann moved ahead, then took
the second with some ease.
For a while there was the prospect of a mixed doubles final
without either of the top seeds as Clark and Olver lost
the first while Robertson and Wallwork saw a one-game
lead disappear. Both pairs won their deciders with some comfort
though.
Top seed and defending champion Rajiv Ouseph took the
first 13 points against Harry Wright before claiming the first
21-5. Wright rallied in the second and it was point for point up
to 17-all when Ouseph took the last four points to reach a third
successive final.
There he'll meet his opponent from last year after Carl
Baxter upset the seedings to beat Andrew Smith in straight
games. Baxter opened up an early lead in both games and Smith
could never get back in touch.
Helen Davies reached her first Nationals Final, but the
second seed was made to work for it by young Sarah Milne. Davies
came from 16-19 down to take the first, which was a good job as
Sarah, running her heart out, took the second 21-18. The effort
told though and Davies eased ahead to take the third
comfortably.
In the women's doubles top seeds Wallwork & White had to
come from behind in the second game to complete a 2-0 win over
Lim & Robertshaw, and will meet second seeds Agathangelou &
Olver in the final.
In the final matches of the day we were within a couple of
rallies of seeing both top seeds in the Men's Doubles go out
within seconds of each other. While second seeds Adcock &
Blair were struggling to a 23-21 in the third win, top seeds
and defending champions Robertson and Clark were mounting
a tremendous recovery from a game and 19-13 down.
Far from that taking the wind out of Langridge & Middleton's
sails, they edged ahead in the decider, but from 15-17 the top
seeds reeled off the next six points to reach yet another final. |
Baxter conquers "weird" Smith
Semi-finals: Richard Eaton reports
Andrew Smith's chances of ever becoming English national
champion look remote after a performance loaded with strange
mistakes and ambivalent body language saw him crash to a
straight games semi-final defeat to his regular sparring
partner.
Although Smith's 21-13, 21-15 loss to Carl Baxter
included a solid performance from his third-seeded opponent, the
predominant impression was that England's most potent player of
the past three years had less than all of his mind on the job.
 Once
again Smith was wearing a shirt from the Kuala Lumpur Racket
Club, the place where he still says he prefers to train and
practise, and there were moments when it seemed that he might be
on his way there sooner rather than later.
Once he played a net shot and ran away with his back to the net
before Baxter had struck the shuttle, and two or three times
lashed over-fierce attempts at kills spectacularly into the net.
Even in the last 15 points of the match, when Smith's moments of
head shaking and expressions of disappointment indicated the
re-surfacing of an instinct to win, he still put pushes, clips
and flicks unaccountably into the net, which was surely
symptomatic of variable concentration.
“It was difficult to play him because he has a strange style and
his body language was weird,” said Baxter candidly. "I had to
block all that out but I got nervous near the end."
All this was a pity, because the absent-mindedness of Smith's
game was interspersed with some dismissive flick returns of
serve which went for sweeping winners, with several penetrating
smashes from deep positions, and with the arrogant calmness of a
man who appears to sense he is capable of inflicting damage
almost at any time.
 But
not all the time, and the third-seeded Baxter was much too
determined to let Smith get away with his wastefulness.
"I lost when I played him two weeks ago, but this time I did
some things better,” he said.
“I served better and was better with the overhead stuff, and I
was more tidy. Then, I played some loose shots. Today I didn't.”
For the second successive year the Avon-based former Canadian
will play in the final the defending champion Rajiv Ouseph,
whom he has yet to beat in four meetings.
Ouseph gave impressive signs of the improvement he has made in
the past couple years in a 21-5, 21-17 win over Harry Wright,
the fourth seed, putting the shuttle on the floor more often
than he used to, and taking the first 13 points before his
opponent could score.
A tense-looking Wright recovered well in the second game,
leading 12-8 and 15-14, but Ouseph's greater experience still
made him the defter and more relaxed player on the points that
mattered most.
“Carl's playing pretty well,” Ouseph said, feeling quite
comfortable about talking his opponent up. “It won't be easy
against him, and I will try to play a solid game.”
If Ouseph does, he will be odds on to become only the third man
to win three English national men's singles titles in a row.
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
Cann's success helps
purge the pain.
Women's Singles: Richard Eaton reports
Liz Cann, three times the former national women's
champion, moved to within one win of a fourth title which will
do much to purge the pain and frustration from six months out of
the game after a car crash.
There had been moments, the top-seeded Cann admitted after her
increasingly impressive 21-18, 21-10 win over surprise
semi-finalist Nicola Cerfontyne, when she wondered
whether she had the mental capacity to make the long road back
from a back injury.
 “I
knew it was physically possible but it was a question of whether
I wanted to go through it mentally,” she said. “That was a tough
thing.
“But it has made me hungrier. I really want to win this
championship again.”
There was little doubt that Cann would win the semi-final after
she had got through a tight first game against a speedy and
courageous, but fading opponent who had had by far the harder of
their quarter-final contests.
Cerfontyne had needed almost an hour of non-stop action to upset
the third-seeded Rachel Howard, a regular sparring partner, in
the longest singles match of the day. Cann had cruised past Hana
Littlecott for the loss of only 17 points.
By the time Cann produced two splendid round-the-head smashes to
go 10-5 and 11-5 up in the second game, it was clear that the
energy tally was becoming as important as the points score.
There had been a brief crisis when Cerfontyne recovered from a
loose start, became more aggressive and reduced a five-point
deficit back to one at 18-19. But then the unseeded player
crucially put a tumbler into the net to go game point down, and
her best chance was gone.
Cann now has a final against Helen Davies, the
second-seeded local hope who reached her first final by
overcoming Sarah Milne, the unseeded but spirited member
of England's world junior squad, by 21-19, 18-21, 21-12.
Milne had already ousted the fourth-seeded Alex Langley earlier
in the day, and was not far from doing the same to the
23-year-old member of England's European silver medal winning
team last year.
Had Milne capitalised on her 19-15 first game lead she might
well have done so. But in the crucial next half dozen points
Davies was admirably solid, and in the final game, as Milne
began to blow a little, the older player was the more forcing
and more consistent all through.
 “I
had to control my nerves, to be honest,” admitted a
relieved-sounding Davies. “Halfway through the second game I
started thinking about the final.
“I couldn't serve or anything, and then I thought, after I lost
the second game, I am just going to give it everything I have
got, and get on with it!
“It means everything to me to be in the final. I am just going
to try to get as many points as I can, and enjoy it. The
pressure is off me now.”
|
|
 |
Clark's record bid
saved from the dead
Men's Doubles: Richard Eaton reports
Anthony Clark's bid for a record-breaking ninth
successive national men's doubles title survived a miraculous
escape from the dead when he and Nathan Robertson
recovered from a game and 13-19 down in the second – and from
near exhaustion after four matches in a day - to reach the final
in by far the finest match of the tournament so far.
 From
appearing almost certain to lose to the faster, fresher and
younger Chris Langridge and Robin Middleton, Clark and
Robertson somehow nudged and nurdled, chiselled and crafted
their way to 11 points in a row and eventually to an improbable
17-21, 21-19, 21-17 victory.
Their slow recovery was packed full of brilliant rallies, often
flat and furious, but sometimes with changes of pace from
overhead attacking against balanced and reflex defending. It
also contained such dramatic changes of fortune that all four
players' emotions were tested to the limit, as well their skill
and movement. It was not entirely surprising therefore that both
Robertson and Langridge received yellow cards for some of their
reactions to the prolonged stress.
But it was amazing that the two 32-year-olds escaped defeat even
after reaching the temporary respite of a final game. Once again
they trailed, by 15-17, before clawing their way back again,
Clark serving excellently at the end, and both men using all
their vast know-how to put the shuttle in the most awkward
places when it mattered most of all.
 “We
had a bit of luck and a bit of experience,” said Robertson, who
was displaying a large lump on his wrist and a bright red weal
up his arm from an accidental blow by Clark's racket during the
middle of one furious rally. “We're a couple of old men.”
We shall see how old they really are when they try to recover
well enough for one of them to achieve their 13th national title
and the other his 12th. There must be considerable doubts
whether they can, especially as the men's doubles final is
against Robertson's bitterest rival, Robert Blair, who
forms with Chris Adcock the partnership which joyfully
brought them down in the Denmark Open in October.
These two, the second seeds, themselves only survived by the
width of a couple of racket frames as they got back from 18-19
down in the final game against Andrew Ellis and Dean George
to win 20-22, 21-14, 23-21 on their third match point in another
fraught semi-final.
Not only are they a younger pair, but neither will have begun
finals day by playing against each other in the mixed doubles
final, as Robertson, partnering Jenny Wallwork, and
Clark, with Heather Olver, will have to, no matter what
the state of their aching muscles.
 So
how do they cope with four matches in a day, and then come up
for more? “I don't really know,” said Robertson with oblique
humour. “We only do this sort of thing once a year.”
Earlier he and Wallwork reached the mixed final with another
long drawn out win by 21-14, 13-21, 21-12 over Adcock and Gabby
White, while Clark and Olver joined them by accelerating from
12-12 in the final game to get past Middleton and the
impressively improving Mariana Agathangelou 16-21, 21-14,
21-16.
“It's never fun playing against each other,” said Clark. “But we
are used to it.” |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
Jenny – a double challenger
for the first time
Richard Eaton
reports
Jenny Wallwork made sure of becoming the the only woman
challenging for two titles on finals day, after winning four
matches in a day for the first time and appearing as fresh as if
it was something she was perfectly used to.
The 23-year-old favourite in the women's and mixed doubles
finished the semi-finals in by far the best shape of the
tournament's three players who survived a quartet of matches in
a gruelling Friday schedule.
Wallwork will play with one of those, Nathan Robertson,
in the mixed doubles final, and take on the other of them,
Anthony Clark, who is partnering the inexperienced but
increasingly comfortable Heather Olver.
But Wallwork's play suggested she felt more comfortable than she
has ever been at the national championships, her performances in
both her disciplines suggesting how far she has developed in the
last year.
 “You
can see she is quicker and faster and in much better physical
condition than she was,” says Robertson, with whom she first
beat Sam Dobson and Emily Westwood 21-14, 21-12, and then got
past the dangerous Chris Adcock and Gabby White, who are
England's highest ranked partnership at world number 20, by
21-14, 13-21, 21-12.
Wallwork produced some solid net play in a crucial period in the
middle of the final game of this semi-final, when emotions were
beginning to run high. Robertson had already been warned for
taking a lengthy drink and failing to heed the umpire's request
to restart play immediately, and it was followed by a warning
for Adcock for a remark he made while the match was slipping
away.
Later White gained excellent consolation however, when she and
Wallwork made the finals of the women's doubles, following a
comfortable win over Tracy Baker of Worcestershire and Catherine
Grant of Warwickshire with a far harder-worked 21-14, 21-19
success over the dangerous-looking Kate Robertshaw and Alyssa
Lim.
They will face the second-seeded Olver and Mariana
Agathangelou in the penultimate final of the day, and could
hardly be more motivated for this. Last year they had two match
points in the women's doubles final against the top-seeded Donna
Kellogg and Suzanne Rayappan – and blew them both.
White was service faulted on one, and Wallwork served out on the
other. The memory will probably force its way into their heads,
even though they will fight hard to block it out.
“You have to try to treat them like any other matches, otherwise
you put too much pressure on yourself,” said Wallwork, in her
sensible Lancastrian tones. “I just hope that we play at our
best.” |
Cerfontyne pays her own way to a high-price success as women's
seeds fall ...
Singles quarter-finals: Richard Eaton reports
Nicola Cerfontyne, the 22-year-old whose career stalled
badly when she was sidelined for ten months with a shoulder
injury, announced that she is back to better than before by
causing the tournament's biggest upset so far.
Cerfontyne came from 10-12 down in the final game to beat the
third-seed Rachel Howard 21-17, 11-21, 21-14 in a match
of long rallies, great fluctuations, and a surprising twist in
tail, earning her a semi-final meeting with the favourite,
Liz Cann.
 It
was a morale-boosting triumph for England's 14th ranked player
who currently has to fund her own way to accompany national
squad players on tour, though it left her uncertain whether to
express her elation or remain focussed on having to play a
second match later in a day.
Her victory not only required her to halt a Howard recovery
which seemed to have changed the momentum of the match, it also
required her to maintain her blistering speed – her greatest
weapon – right the way through a prolonged struggle.
“When I was injured I wasn't able to hit any shuttles for long
time, so I concentrated on the physical side a lot more,”
Cerfontyne said.
It was almost certainly this which helped tip the scale in the
later stages of an enthralling match, whose unpredictable shifts
of fortune may have stemmed from their being regular sparring
partners at Bath who know each other's games so well.
“If you know each others' games it's difficult to target
weaknesses and stop strengths,” said Cerfontyne. “We knew it
would be hard.”
 The
outcome may also have been influenced by an incident in the
final game when Cerfontyne led 15-13, and Howard fell awkwardly
trying to reach an accurate overhead drop.
The seeded player appeared to tweak something in a leg, and
although she had a three-minute respite while the sweat was
wiped from the court, her standard fell away as Cerfontyne
romped through the last seven rallies quickly, winning six of
them.
“That did play a part in what happened,” acknowledged Cerfontyne.
“But I felt I had got my momentum back again, had got the lead
again, and had a chance to break away.”
She did that with a run of three points after the court-wiping
break, gaining her a 18-13 lead and a burst of adrenaline. She
got to 19-14 with a neatly sliced drop, and concluded her
victory with a tight low serve which Howard flicked wide.
Earlier Cann had scored an impressively efficient victory over
another Bath-based player, the 21-year-old Hana Littlecott.
The favourite's 21-10, 21-7 win involved an economy of physical
resources which stood her in good stead for the later battle
with the hard-worked Cerfontyne.
The other semi-final saw another surprise survivor, when
Sarah Milne, a steadily improving member of the England
junior squad, outplayed the fourth-seeded former England junior
Alex Langley.
Milne's impressive 21-12, 21-11 win earned her a meeting with
Helen Davies, the second seed who was as surprise last
minute selection for England's silver medal winning team at last
year's world championships.
However Davies had to work hard to get past another England
junior, the 17-year-old Panuga Riou, who showed how close she is
to stepping up to the plate at senior level despite her 23-21,
21-17 loss.
 The
men's singles semi-final line-up contained no surprises, though
second-seeded Andrew Smith had to come from 15-16 down in
the second game against Chris Coles, a member of England's squad
for the world junior championships, before coming through 21-14,
22-20.
He also produced his third different style of outfit – having
declined to remove his extrovertly checked shorts as requested
before his first match yesterday – and now appeared in smart
white shorts and an orange top carrying the initials of the
Kuala Lumpur Racket Club.
 Smith
now plays the third-seeded Carl Baxter who won 21-16,
21-12 against Ben Beckman, an England squad player; the other
semi-final is between Rajiv Ouseph, the defending
champion, and Harry Wright, the third seed.
An impressive Ouseph eased his way past Sam Dobson, son of
Chris, a member of England's bronze medal winning Thomas Cup
team in 1984, by 21-9, 21-11, but Wright had to struggle hard
for a while against Toby Penty, another of England's junior
squad, before winning 22-20, 21-13. |
 |
|
Photo Galleries
 |
Cerfontyne halts Howard
 After
a hectic first day it was essentially down to the quarters and
semis today, with the women's doubles having three rounds to
play, starting at 10am, then this afternoon we go down to three
courts for the semi-finals.
No surprises in that first round of the women's doubles as Tracy
Hallam got her comeback under way as she and Kelly Matthews
progressed to the quarters.
Next up were the singles, men's and women's, and it was plain
sailing for the seeds until the last match, where Nicola
Cerfontyne ousted third seed Rachel Howard in a 21-17,
11-21, 21-14 scoreline, and she now meets Liz Cann for a place
in the final.
Second seed Helen Davies was made to work hard by Panuga
Riou, eventually winning 23-21, 21-15, although at 15-all in the
second it could have gone either way. A second upset saw
Sarah Milne beat fourth seed Alex Langley 21-12, 21-11 to
set up a semi-final meeting with Davies.
 The
linep for the men's semis is Rajiv Ouseph v Harry Wright
and Andrew Smith v Carl Baxter, who all enjoyed 2-0
victories this morning.
In the mixed doubles fourth seeds Middleton & Agathangelou
survived by the skin of their teeth, 22-20 in the third against
Blair and Fletcher, and boy were they pleased about it ...
The quarter-finals concluded with probably the most intense
match of the champion ships so far, as Andrew Ellis and Dean
George prevailed 21-117 in the third against Marcus Ellis
and Peter Mills. There was a lot of adrenalin out there, with
the end of the last dozen or so points celebrated in determined
fashion, but it was Ellis & George who were celebrating at the
end. |
|
 |
|
