Top seeds Simpson and Waller
in Jersey Classic final
Defending
Champion Chris Simpson made it back into the PSA $15k Jersey
Classic final with a hard-fought 3-1 win over Alan Clyne that
kept the top seed on court for 66 tough minutes.
The opening rally, lasting over two minutes, set the scene, and
it was not alone in a match which had long, often brutal rallies
at regular intervals.
For
the first two games though Simpson was not only winning those
rallies, after some Clyne-like retrieving of his own, he was
also the one who managed to finish off the quicker rallies, more
often than not with the volley drop that has served him so well
so far this week.
Simpson
took early leads in the the first two game of 5/1 and 4/2, and
finished them off 11/3 and 11/6, which sounds comfortable
enough, but each game lasted 13 minutes and each scoreline
wasn’t really indicative of the effort involved.
He
led 5/1 in the third too, after winning another couple of early
brutal rallies, but Clyne was starting to look as though he was
enjoying it now, and it was the Scotsman who began to control
the pace of the rallies. He levelled at 6-all, and took the
18-minute game 11/8 definitely looking the fresher of the two.
Simpson resumed control early in the fourth though, winning
another of those huge rallies to go 3-0 up, and relatively
quickly extended the lead to 5/2, then 6/2 on the back of
another extended rally.
After
that the end came quickly. From 2/10 Clyne saved two match balls
but a comeback was never likely and Simpson closed out the 15
minute game to return to the final.
“That was very tough,” admitted Simpson. “He’s one of the
fittest and quickest players around, a real physical animal, and
he doesn’t give you any angles to hit.
“I
tried to play him on my terms, keeping the pace down as much as
I could and it worked well for the most part, but he came on
strong in the third, I was just glad to be able to regroup and
get back in control in the fourth.
“You can’t play your best every point of every match, but I
think I’ve improved as the tournament has gone on, my length was
better today and I felt pretty sharp but I’m still looking to
take it on a bit more for the final."
The
second semi-final was a much quicker affair, as second seed
Adrian Waller eased past Greg Lobban, who was clearly struggling
physically after his marathon upset win last night.
Waller took control from the outset and never let his opponent
get a foothold in the match. In the third game Lobban resorted
to playing some exhibition shots, guessing, all to no avail as
Waller moved through to the final.
“Greg had a great win last night, but it really took it out
of him,” said Waller. ”He put everything he had in, but
sometimes you just don’t get long enough to recover from matches
like that.
“I
started well, and as the match went on I could see the effect
that last night had on him, so I just had to get on and do what
I needed to do, get the win as quickly as I could, you can panic
if you’re in that type of situation, you just have to put it out
of your mind and get on with it.
“It’s always a good battle between me and Chris, I got the
better of him last time but we’ll see how it goes tomorrow.
“It’s always nice to get as far as you can in a tournament and
the further you get the more you enjoy it, so I’m definitely
enjoying it here so far!”
