Eastbourne International Tennis Tournament - Day Eight

Saturday 21st June 2014
Finals Day
Devonshire Park, Eastbourne
Admission: £46.00
Order of Play Leaflet: Free

Having thoroughly enjoyed my first experience of tennis last Saturday at Devonshire Park, I decided to make a return visit today, to watch the women's, men's and women's doubles finals. Although the £46 ticket price today was in stark contrast to last Saturday's free entry, today would give me to sample the opportunity to sample some big match atmosphere tennis-style and watch some of the top players in the game, rather than the collection of game no-hopers.

Although the first match was scheduled to start at 1pm, I arrived at the ground a couple of hours early, to take in the build up in atmosphere, and to watch the players practice on the outside courts, an opportunity to get close to the stars that presumably one would not generally get at the bigger tournaments. A live jazz band playing just outside centre court with a mass of people sitting on the grass under the warm sunshine - glorious conditions that were to last the entire day - added to the lovely relaxed, summery feel to proceedings. For today's action, I bought a seat to the rear of the temporary South Stand, which provided a great overview of the action, as well as nice views of the South Downs in the background.

First match up today would be the highlight of the event, celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year, the women's singles final between fifth seed, and ninth ranked, Angelique Kerber, against the 19 year old unseeded, and 47 ranked American, Madison Keys. To reach today's final, Kerber had beaten America's Alison Riske 7-6, 6-4, Alize Cornet of France 7-5, 1-6, 7-6, Ekaterina Makarova of Russia 7-5, 6-3 and Denmark's Caroline Wosniacki 6-7, 6-4, 6-2, and today would be Kerber's second Eastbourne final, having lost to Tamira Paszek in 2012. Keys had beaten third seed Jelena Jankovic 6-3, 6-3, before beating Russia's Elena Vesnina 7-5, 7-6, USA's Lauren Davies 6-2, 6-1 and then Britain's number one, Heather Watson 6-3, 6-1. Today would be Keys' first WTA final, but Kerber had won the previous two times the players had met, both times in Australia since 2013.

Keys started the match impressively, winning the first set fairly comfortably 6-3, dominating play with accurate and fast serves and powerful returns. Kerber came back to win the second set though 6-3 and the final set really could have gone either way, but eventually Keys won it 7-5 to lift the trophy, presented by legend Martina Navratilova. Her impressive display was underlined by an overall record of 17 aces, including a serve clocked at 126mph, the fastest speed this year on the WTA tour and fifth fastest ever recorded.

Shortly after this match, the men's final began, with top seed, and 14th ranked, Richard Gasquet, taking on the reigning Eastbourne champion, third seed and 29th ranked Spaniard Felliciano Lopez. Gasquet had beaten Bernard Tomic 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, Martin Klizan 6-3, 6-4 and Denis Istomin 6-4, 6-2, whilst Lopez beat Tobias Kamke 7-6, 7-5, Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 6-4 and Sam Querry 6-4, 7-6. Gasquet certainly has had the better of the previous meetings between the two, winning all five of them, and would be looking for his eleventh ATP World Tour title.

Lopez started the match strong, winning the first set fairly comfortably 6-3. The second set was a much closer affair, going to a tiebreak which Gasquet eventually won, the winning point claimed by a shot which hit the net and just dropped the other side. The final set was also a close affair which really could have gone either way, but eventually it was Lopez who triumphed 7-5 to retain his title and indeed, will go down as the last men's winner at Eastbourne for the foreseeable future, as Eastbourne will revert to a women's only tournament from next year.

The final match of the day would be the women's doubles - seemingly not a match to captivate the crowd, as about half of it disappeared during the match. It did have a star turn though, with Martina Hingis - who these days only plays doubles - partnering Italy's Flavia Pennetta. They were up against sisters from Chinese Taipei, Hao-Ching Chan and Yung-Jan Chan. To reach today's final, Hinvus and Pennetta, who had not played together before this tournament, had beaten Ekaterina Makarova and Elina Vesnina 7-5, 6-2, Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond 6-1, 6-3 and Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik 6-4, 4-6, 10-8. The Chan sisters had beaten Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears 6-1, 7-6, Cara Black and Sania Mirza 6-1, 3-6, 10-7 and Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci 6-2, 6-3.

The Chan sisters started the match very strongly, winning the first set 6-3. It looked like they would wrap up a quick match when they led the second set 5-1, but then Hingis and Pennetta launched a quite astonishing comeback, winning the next six games despite saving match points on four different occasions, to win the second set 7-5. The match was then decided on a tie-break, and perhaps surprisingly considering how the second set panned out, the Chan sisters never looked in any danger of losing and won the tie-break 10-7. The trophy presentations brought the curtain down on a fabulous day's tennis under glorious sunshine throughout, well worth the admission and I look forward already to next year's tournament, which will be Ladies only.

Video highlights of both singles finals can be found here

Eastbourne International Tennis Tournament - Day One

Saturday 14^th June 2014

Eastbourne International Tennis Tournament Qualifying Rounds

Devonshire Park, Eastbourne

Admission: Free

Order of play leaflet: Free

Ever since I visited Eastbourne annually to watch county cricket at The Saffrons and passed Devonshire Park back in the nineties, I had always fancied taking in a day’s play during the Eastbourne International tournament week, but had always forgotten about it until it was too late each year. When I discovered a week or so ago that tickets would be free of charge on the opening day of this year’s tournament, I hurriedly booked my ticket for my first ever taste of live tennis.

Devonshire Park is about a ten minute walk from Eastbourne railway station, and is converted into an extremely attractive and well organised venue for this tournament week. Although one can use any of eight entrances to get into the ground, once inside the main entrance, one finds marquees offering information, refreshments and souvenirs. Beyond these are eleven tennis courts, all fenced off with spectators able to watch the action either to the side or behind the courts. It’s a packed area, but it never felt too busy or claustrophobic today, with some attractive buildings scattered around the perimeter, including Devonshire Park theatre. Beyond the outside courts are the two main arenas, Centre Court and Court One, which back onto each other. Centre court obviously dominates the area, with its stands dominating the complex. Behind one length is the large main stand, with a small roof covering the top couple of rows, and some hospitality lounges along the top of the stand – which also look over Court One to the other side. The main stand continues around one of the corners and behind one end. Further permanent seating stretches along the other length, although not as high, and temporary seating is placed above the permanent seating, so that the top of this stand matches the other two sides, and indeed all four sides have stands of matching height, as behind the remaining end, an entirely temporary stand has been erected. The Centre Court is extremely smart and pleasing on the eye, with everything sky blue and white coloured and it has a nice close-knit and atmospheric feel to it. A large scoreboard is located in one corner, with a much smaller one containing only the score is placed at the top of the entirely temporary stand. As mentioned, Court One backs onto the main stand of the Centre Court, and today one could walk freely between the two via the stand. There are six rows of permanent seating along this length, whilst along the opposite side is a temporary stand offering ten rows of seating. Behind one of the ends is a rather cramped two rows of seating, whilst behind the other end are just advertising boards. On a day of free entry like today, the complex was an excellent set-up, with it easy to wander around the pitches to find a game that takes one’s fancy, with a good, relaxed atmosphere throughout.

For my first game of the day, I chose to take up residence on Centre Court for the 10.30 game, to see if Great Britain’s Scott Clayton, hailing from Jersey and with an ATP ranking of 1,152, could cause a big upset against Australian Chris Guccione, ranked 614. Although Clayton made a moderately promising start, Guccione comfortably progressed within 52 minutes, winning 6-2, 6-1.

I stayed on Centre Court for my second game to cheer on another Brit, this time Ken Skupski, a Liverpudlian who doesn’t currently have a singles ranking as he concentrates on the doubles variety with his brother, against Frenchman Remi Boutillier, currently ranked 451. This would be a closer game match than my earlier one, Boutillier winning the first set 6-3, but the second set was very close fought and eventually went to a tie-break, which could have gone either way but in the end Boutillier triumphed in the tie break 7-3, to win 6-3, 7-6, with the match taking just over an hour and ten minutes.

I then moved to the adjacent Court One to take in some women’s tennis, to watch one of the best players playing in the Qualifiers today, Italian Francesca Schiavone who is ranked 71 but who was ranked as high as fourth in early 2011, won the French Open in 2010 and reached the Quarter Finals at Wimbledon in 2011, against Japan’s Misaki Doi, currently ranked 98^th. This match started off very evenly, but as it wore on, Schiavone imposed herself more and more, playing some great shots and gradually wore Doi’s resistance down, winning the match by 6-4, 6-3 with the match taking an hour and eighteen minutes.

I remained on Court One for my fourth game of the day, to cheer on a Brit, this time 17 year old Katie Boulter, ranked 581 but who still plays predominantly junior tennis. It would surely be a mighty tough assignment to progress in this game, against Austria’s Tamira Paszek, currently ranked 127 but who was ranked as high as 26 last year and won this tournament in 2012. Boulter started quite competitively, but soon made far too many unforced errors and in the end, Paszek comfortably progressing by winning 6-3, 6-1 in 56 minutes.

After a short break wandering around the complex and watching short snippets of action from the out pitches, taking in a couple of games in Court Two watching Jade Windley against Ana Tomljanovic....

I then returned to Centre Court for my final match of the day, a second qualifying round game featuring Remi Boutillier, who I had watched this morning, against Germany’s Tobias Kamke, ranked 88 and top seed in the qualifying tournament, thereby receiving a bye in the first qualifying round. This would be the closest game I had watched today, with Boutillier putting up a great show against a much higher ranked opponent, although he did frustratingly make some basic errors and was not helped with losing his footing on several occasions, perhaps due to the brief light rain shower that arrived soon after this game started. Kamke won the first set 6-4, but in the second half, he seemed to self-destruct somewhat, allowing himself to get frustrated and seemingly lose a little composure, earning an official warning from the umpire, and Boutillier won the second set 6-3. Unfortunately for him, Kamke regained his composure and dominated the final set , eventually winning 6-3 to progress, with the match taking one hour and 43 minutes.

 This was the final match on centre court, and I wandered down to Court One to watch Chris Guccione, who I watched first thing this morning, win a second set tie break to advance to the third round. Although matches were still going on around the minor courts, I decided I had experience enough tennis for the day and made my way home, but this was certainly a most enjoyable day, being able to pick and choose a tennis game to watch, and excellent value with the free admission - this was surely not be my last taste of tennis.