Gelderlish players excel in qualifiers
It has been a successful past three days in Antillia as every Gelderlish singles player and doubles team has advanced out of the qualifying stages of the Antillia Masters to get to the main draw of the prestigious, 96-player Premier Mandatory tournament held here at the King Pedro Tennis Complex in Antillia, with doubles qualifying taking place at the nearby Sonhos Tennis Club near the Antillia airport.
Max Aswick started off with an interesting match against Starlin Azocar of the Serbian Empire. In the first set, he held his own on serve despite some excellent Azocar returns, while failing to break Azocar's strong serve too much; he regrouped in the second and third sets, however, breaking Azocar one time in each set with some timely return winners off the backhand angle, thanks to Aswick's unconventional (for a youngster, anyhow) one-handed backhand. Melissa Herbert also had a convoluted three-set win in her first match against Mihai Carolus Maro of Natanians and Nosts, a somewhat less influential tennis country. Herbert and Maro traded breaks for eight games, while she held her final service game to finally break the cycle and take the set. But Maro held on to take the second set in a tiebreak; Herbert finally found the winning combination of backhands and forehands in the third set, breaking Maro twice and holding onto every service game, including two at love. Finally, Harry Blackwood had the most straightforward win, in two sets over Tobiasia's Sarah Johnson. Although he could only break her once in each set, it was enough to prevail.
Max Aswick once again had to come through an extremely tough win, this time against Eastfield Lodge's Bilaal Bilclough. It was a topsy-turvy match from start to finish, with multiple breaks in each set, but in the end, Aswick proved more resilient, thanks to his focus in getting more returns in play, as opposed to Bilclough, who hit a lot of returns in the net. Melissa Herbert had a straightforward win over Vladimir Ivanovic Ivanov of Serbia, a player with a booming serve; Herbert's return game did not do enough damage in the first ten games, but in the eleventh, some good return winners on serve-and-volley plays, as well as an untimely double fault, gave Herbert the break, and Ivanov duly put 4 returns in the net to give Herbert the first set. The second set lasted a little shorter, for Herbert broke Ivanov in the first game, and it was all smooth sailing from there for Herbert. The first six games of the first set of the Yukon-Blackwood game were tightly contested, but a key break in the eighth saw the Qad player Yukon, a doubles specialist, seal the set with an angled volley winner. But Blackwood knew those doubles tactics, and set to work defusing them in the second and third, thanks to some splitting forehand and backhand down-the-line passing shots that set Blackwood almost on fire, winning the next two 6-2, 6-1.
Max Aswick had to win both of his prior matches in three sets before meeting top seed Meaghan Sharples, and this match would prove no exception. Sharples was on top of her game during most of the first set and half of the second, but Sharples missed a sitter volley and then a sitter overhead in the eighth game, changing the tenor of the match. Aswick duly broke, and kept the momentum riding throughout the third, breaking in the second game. Although his serve proved painfully vulnerable when he was serving for the match, he broke right back with an angled crosscourt forehand winner and served it out in the twelfth game, avoiding the need for a tiebreaker. Melissa Herbert, unfortunately, dropped her first match of the tournament to Yissakhar ben Ira of Judea; she held match points in the second-set tiebreak, but lost her nerve, and those points, while ben Ira kept pounding her with angled forehand after angled forehand. Harry Blackwood had the easiest match of the qualifiers against Marisa Celeste Frieri, the Serbian Empire's #2 player. Blackwood was methodical in dispatching the Serbian royalty, with winners coming from every angle and position, while his incessant baseline power forced many errors from the Serbian player.
In the doubles, Max Aswick and Noah Lennox had an inspired performance against Tuk and Brazzos of Qasden; they managed to defeat the Qad pairing two sets to love, thanks to a great combination of baseline and volley play, before succumbing to the lobs and passing shots of the Eastfielder pair Wise and Prieto. They will nonetheless secure a Lucky Loser spot in the main draw. In the first game, West and Brown had trouble beating Zowzer and Yukon, also of Qasden, conceding the first set 6-2 before upping their game in the second and third sets, winning each 6-3. Then, in their second match, they crushed Frieri and Stefanovic, the #1 Serbian pair, with a ruthless combination of return winners, excellent volleys, and exploitation of frequent Frieri and Stefanovic errors and faults. Clark and Herbert had two easy matches, against Johnson and Smith of Tobiasia and ben Ira/ben Yehudah of Judea, as their combination of groundstrokes and returns proved too much for the opposition. Finally, the lefty-righty combination of Southgate and Elliott, who won the mixed doubles gold medal in Centralis, using their volleying expertise to expertly deny their opponents Chacon/Estrada of the Redvale and Oreskovic/Mirkic of the Serbian Empire to move on to the next round.
