steven wrote:

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Forgot to post earlier - she also said Oli was "3-1 up Belgian swearing" - she means the Swede, obviously - easy to mix up given his name and the discussion here yesterday!

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Ooops, twerp I am - and I had the OOP in front of me too!!!  I probably got a bit confused because there was a group of French speaking player sat one table in the Brasserie.  + another of Eastern Europeans, a few Americans and a guy on his own who was probably the Swede!!!

I'll begin at the beginning - bit of a blog I guess.

The weather forecast for Bournemouth wasn't THAT bad this morning - shame the forecasters didn't have a word with the rain gods. 

Nice club, quite big with spacious facilities; but no thwocking of tenns balls to be heard when I arrived around 12.15pm.  No matches in progress on the inside courts either so I asked and the receptionist said she thought they were down at the Gardens so I headed there.  Umm, no players there either.  Big bubble dome with 3 courts inside but no people.  Found tennis pavilion where the manager said the players hadn't been down but the bubble was reserved for the event that afternoon.

Hum ho.  Back to West Hants.  This time I got into the club proper and found all the tennis players.  Spoke to Fitzy who said they were hoping for a 2pm start.  It ended up being around 3pm.

They'd put the Mens SF's on the first 2 courts across the main walkway from each other. Ladies QF's were further on down and out of earshot mostly  Watched Golding/Renard for a short while and Oli was ahead 3-1 when I moved across to watch Fitzy and Bloomers (but in earshot of the Umpire calling scores for Golding/Renard).    Actually I could hear quite a lot from the Golding/Renard court; there was a considerable amount of grunting going on with almost every shot from that match.   And definitely a few tirades In A foreign language from Oli's opponent but perhaps also some chuntering from Oli in the first set too 'cos he lost his service breaks!! It ended up as a tie-break 'cos Renard fought back and I kept hearing the umpire calling their scores wondering if Oli could win.  He really motored in the TB winning it to love.  And obviously did well in the 2nd winning 6'2 - which would explain further outbursts in a foreign language.

Have to say I was quite engrossed in the Fitzy/Bloomers match which is why I didn't go to see any of the others at all so I'm sorry for not texting updates on the ladies matches.

Fitzy got an early break in the first set and was serving at 2-1 up when I began watching and he just kept his serve to take the set   Richard played much better in the 2nd and Fitzy seemed to dip a little (and get frustrated with himself!!!).  When Richard broke at the start of the 3rd set I thought the game might be up but Fitzy did well to keep calm and break back and then stay ahead to win it.

Interesting watching them play.  Quite a lot of baseline rallies with both of them striking the ball well and both have a good 'touch' so drop shots and overheads were working too. 

I enjoyed it. So, thanks guys!

It was about 5pm when I left and they were still planning to play the Mens Doubles SF immediately followed by the Final.

-- Edited by daisy on Friday 27th of April 2012 09:45:05 PM

This board is running incredibly slow for me tonight ...

EDIT - it was my internet playing up!