Saturday’s men’s doubles, part of the men’s $10,000 futures tournament, was particularly absorbing, won by No 3 seeds David Corrie partnering American Phil Stolt against American No 1 seeds Eric Butorac and Chris Drake, 7-5, 6-7, 7-6.
‘Considering that Corrie and Drake are 1,077 in the world, while their opponents are 495, you couldn’t have asked for a closer final,’ said Hugh Raymond, Channel Island LTA Development Officer, and one of the main organisers.
‘Every game could have gone either way, and the serves and volleys at times were unbelievable.’ Sadly, from an England point of view, Corrie, who won an American university scholarship and has an American girlfriend has applied for American citizenship – which he will probably get.
But for the first time since the ladies championships started at Les Ormes in 2002, a British girl won the women’s singles yesterday; No 1 seed Elena Baltacha beating Austria’s Daniela Kix 6-4, 6-4 to top the $25,000 event.
This time the seeding was spot on, with the British player, ranked No 154 in the world, clinically engineering her win against the gameful Austrian, ranked 271.
‘And that is a promising omen for Britain, and for Baltacha,’ said Raymond, ‘because since these tournaments began, every winner we’ve had has now progressed to being in the top 100 in the world.
‘One thing I’ve noticed that the tournament brings in, is either players going up in world rankings or going down on the other side – there is nothing in between.’ In the men’s lower key final, on Saturday, England’s Matthew Smith, the No 3 seed, also won fairly comfortably, 6-3, 6-4 against, Simon Harston, who has until recently been a coach, for three years, 6-3,6-4.
That was on Saturday; but the other final yesterday, in the women’s doubles, saw another epic two and a half hour confrontation as Veronika Shvojkova from the Czech Republic and partner Stanislava Hrozenska of Slovakia beat the No 1 seeds Ireland’s Kelly Liggan and Nadejda Ostrovskaya from Belarussia 4-6, 6-2, 7-5.
Again, a crowd of up to 300 were riveted by the way all four players refused to concede a single, easy point, and although the Czech and Slovak players had to work hard for their win, they deserved to upset the odds by taking on, and beating, the No 1 seeds.
At the end of the tournament, however, the real winner was Jersey tennis.
‘I have just taken LTA president Charles Trippe to the Airport,’ said Raymond late last night.
‘He couldn’t believe the support for the tournament, nor the organisation.
We, the CILTA organise it, not the LTA, and I think he’d like to us organise more of these tournaments.
‘The players certainly like to keep coming here, and we will certainly organise more tournaments, but perhaps not as many as the LTA would like.
‘If we do so, it has to have some benefit to our own island players; and one of the costs, which we can’t, at the moment get around, is that of bringing the officials to the Island.
‘This year alone there were 44 UK officials as well as the 138 players.
That is where the extra cost is – we don’t have enough qualified officials.’
