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Boys U19 Semis
Chris Simpson bt Chris Hall
9/0, 9/1, 9/4 (32m)
Joel Hinds bt Tom Pashley 9/5, 9/2, 9/5
(41m)
Top seed and defending champion Chris Simpson wasted no time in
reaching the final for the second year. Having spent two and a half
hours on court yesterday, winning his interrupted semi-final well
after all the other matches had finished, Chris Hall simply didn't
have enough left to give to challenge Simpson.
After taking the first two for the loss of a single point, Simpson
found Hall a tougher test in the third, but from 4-all he wound the
pace up again to move clear and into the final.
In the final he will meet Joel Hinds in a repeat of their
semi-final meeting last year. Hinds too has had a relatively
comfortable passage to the final, overpowering Tom Pashley in the
semi-final, so both should be fresh for the final.
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 "I
didn't feel that tired in my lungs, I thought I had some running
left in me, but there was just nothing there in my legs."
Chris Hall
"I'm happy enough with that. My short shots were going in well at
the start, but Chris started playing better in the third so I had
to dig in a bit then.
Chris Simpson |
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Girls
U19 Semis:
[3/4] Emma Chorley bt [2] Deon
Saffery
10/8, 4/9, 9/10, 10/8, 10/9 (73m)
[1] Rachel Willmott bt [5/8] Victoria Bell
9/6, 7/9, 4/9, 10/9, 9/4 (58m)
Two fantastic semi-finals, two exhausted but elated winners.
Rachel Willmott moved into a second consecutive U19 final by
the slenderest of margins, fighting back from 3-7 down in the fourth
and saving three match-balls before squeezing through 10-9 to level
the match, then taking a winning lead in the fifth.
In the final she meets Emma Chorley, the 3/4 seed who denied
U17 champion Deon Saffery an appearance in the U19 final in a
pulsating semi-final that swung one way then another.
Both girls have fantastic retrieving abilities, and used them to the
full throughout the match. The match was thrilling enough in the early
stages, Emma squeezing home in the first, Deon fighting back to take a
2-1 lead.
Then in the fourth Dean appeared to be getting on top, moving Emma
around the court and placing several winners with her opponent
stranded out of position. At 8-1 it looked to be all over. But a
couple of tines from Deon and a lucky winner from Emma made a recovery
look a possibility, no more. The points kept coming, and Emma picked
up the pace, levelling at 8-all in a single hand, and winning it 10-8.
Deon did nothing wrong in the game, she just never got more than the
one chance to finish it off.
Emma carried the momentum into the final game, leading 5/0 and looking
every inch the winner. But another twist saw Deon fight back, gaining
a second match-ball at 8/6 only to see it saved by a stunning short
winner from Emma.
The rallies were amazing, both girls flying around court, retrieving
the irretrievable time after time, with very few errors being made.
It just had to come down to 9-all, and it did. Both save match balls
through sheer persistence, but finally, finally, Emma hit a boast that
was just too tight, and made her delighted - and surprised - way into
the final. |
 "I
just went for a couple of silly shots when I had match ball, which
gave her a bit of confidence to come back into it.
Still, I'm pleased to have reached the semi-final, I've only just
turned 16 so I should have another three goes at this event."
Victoria Bell |
 "When
I was 8-1 down in the fourth I thought it was all over. I thought
that if I was going to lose I didn't want to lose 9/1, so I just
wanted to pick up a few more points.
"In the fifth I was shaking on every match ball, I thought my
knees were going to give way on me.
"I wasn't expecting that at all ... I'm a nervous wreck!"
Emma Chorley |
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Boys U19 Quarters:
The seeding committee didn't do too bad on the U19s. Defending
champion Chris Simpson hasn't been unduly troubled so far,
although his 9/3 9/1 9/2 scoreline over Adrian Waller was a little
harsh on the the Hertfordshire player who competed well for most of
the 36 minutes their quarter-final lasted.
Simpson meets Chris Hall in the semis after Hall won an
interrupted and often contentious match against James Snell.
Snell took the first two, both long games, but Hall hit back to level
with quick wins in the third and fourth. At 2/1 in the decider a
collision left Snell with a 'dead leg', and he had to take a 'time
out'.
After an hour's delay the match resumed, and was fiercely contested as
they matched each other to 7-all. With both players determined to win
the referee was called into action on virtually every rally, but in
the end two tins from Snell meant that it was Hall who would take on
Simpson in the semis.
In the bottom half second seed Joel Hinds, sporting a new
shorter hairstyle in the evening, won three well-contested games
against Nick Bradley, and meets Tom Pashley, who was well
pleased with his straight-games win over Joe Lee, who had earlier put
out 3/4 seed Chris Tasker-Grindley. |
Hall & Snell
 "Really
pleased with that.
"I was up for it, I expected to win but I know Joe's a really
tough player to beat, and if you let him play his game you're in
trouble. So I tried to keep the pace up as much as I could ..."
Tom Pashley |
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Bradley & Hinds |
Pashley & Lee |
Boys U15 Quarters:
The boys U15 produced a pair of
shock results ... Top seed won easily enough against Alex Lemom, who
had exceeded his seeding to reach this far, and his opponent in the
semis will be Cambridgeshire's Sammy Chambers, who upset 5/8 seed
Charles Sharpes in a convincing three games.
[5/8] Sammy Chambers bt [3/4] Charles Sharpes
9/2, 9/0, 9/7 (37m)
 "This
is the furthest I've got in the Nationals, but I won a Grand Prix
event, beating Charles in the semis and James [Earles] in the
final, so I'm looking forward to playing Ben ...
Sammy Chambers |
Sammy: "I've never done well in the British".
Mike Harris: "Well, you have now!" |
Ben Coleman bt Phillip
Waller
10/8, 9/7, 9/7 (57m)
The biggest upset of the day came when unseeded Ben Coleman, urged on
with great gusto by the Essex crowd, beat Hertfordshire's Phillip
Waller - urged on just as fervently by the locals - to reach a wholly
unexpected (by the seeding committee) semi-final place.
Ben has apparently been doing well at home in Essex, won the Essex
Open, and according to Gary Sherman has 'come on in leaps and bounds
in the last few months.'
Paul Selby's coaching surely plays a large part in Ben's progress, but
as Gary says, "Ben shows great spatial awareness on the court, and on
the backhand in particular puts lots of spin on the ball so that his
shots often look as though they're going out but somehow curve back in
..."
We'll try to get a video tomorrow, but in the meantime, well done Ben
...
 |
Ben Coleman at full stretch |
Earles flies Yorkshire flag |
Girls U5
Quarters:
[3/4] Millie Tomlinson bt
[5/8] Hannah Deah
9/0, 9/1, 9/5 (23m)
Millie Tomlinson, from Derbyshire, won the U13 national title here
at Bishops Stortford last year. She's only a few weeks too old to
defend that title, but today made the semis in her first appearance in
the U15 event, as a 3/4 seed.
 "I'm
pleased to make the semi-finals. I'm playing Kimberley tomorrow
which will be tough, but I beat her for the first time last week,
I hit the ball harder than I usually do against her and it worked.
"It means we get to stay an extra night in the Executive Suite at
the hotel - my dad booked a room for five, but when we got there
there were only four beds, so they upgraded us!"
Millie Tomlinson |
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Girls U19 Quarters:
[3/4] Emma Chorley bt [5/8] Gemma
Davies 9/3, 9/0, 9/2 (21m)
 "I
always have really close close games with Victoria [Lust], but I
haven't played Deon for a while.
"I just hope they have a really long game!"
Emma Chorley |
Emma's wish was pretty much granted,
as Deon and Victoria played out a strongly-contested match on court
Taureg ...
[2] Deon Saffery bt [5/8] Victoria Lust
6/9, 9/0, 10/9, 9/4 (52m)
[1] Rachel Willmott bt Bethan Williams
9/4, 9/1, 9/2 (27m)
[5/8] Victoria Bell bt [3/4] Louise Clark
9/7, 9/0, 9/2 (22m) |
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Millie is the
smallest of the semi-finalists, but not as small as this angle makes
her look! |
TWO HARD GAMES
TODAY ...
The Boys U19 event definitely has 'strength in depth', and some
of today's last sixteen matches were real crunchers.
 Take
Joe Lee's win over 3/4 seed Chris Tasker-Grindley. Joe
took the first game 9-0 with Chris hitting tin after tin, but Chris
fought back to level, taking the second 9-7.
Joe, a 9/16 seed who reached the British Open U17 final just a few
weeks ago went on to take the next two, but it took 79 minutes of
effort, and the quarter-final comes up in a few hours ...
U19 R3:
[9/16] Joe Lee bt [3/4] Chris Tasker-Grindley
9/0, 7/9, 9/4, 9/2 (79m)
No such problems for the other 3/4 seed, Surrey's Chris Hall,
although it still took him 63 minutes to get past Andrew Birks.
[3/4] Chris Hall bt [9/16] Andrew Birks
6/9, 9/4, 9/7, 9/1 (63m)
Top seed and defending champion Chris Simpson beat
Yorkshire's Neil Cordell in straight games, and meets local boy Adrian
Waller in this evening's quarter-finals. |
 "That
was longer and harder than I'd have wanted, especially after
taking the first so easily.
"I promised myself that if I won this I'd win the next one as
well, I'm playing well enough to get through ..."
Joe Lee |
"I'm pleased to get that out of
the way! The first two were really hard, then I was 8/1 up in the
third and only won it 9/7. I play James Snell or Lewis Walters
next ... I hope they're on court for a long time too!
Chris Hall
(Snell won
3/0 in 42 minutes) |
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Stortford
REPORTS
