Rackets | News

Guy Smith-Bingham strong serving and effective returning were the keys to his victory over Tim Cockroft by three games to one in the final of the Amateur Singles Championship at Queen's Club.

The first game of the Amateur Singles final set the model for the rest of the match. Guy went into an initial lead of 5/3 and then 7/5, Tim caught up and then went into a 10/7 lead. Both players were hitting the ball hard,straight and low but Guy was hitting more winners but also making more unforced errors, many of them coming thorough over-hitting, Having reached game point at 14/10 he hit the ball out of court .

This allowed Tim to regroup and he fought back to level the scores at 14 all, winning points by hitting the ball low and hard in front of the service line. In the set to three Guy ,having got back in the box allowed Tim no further chances and took the game 17/14 with two aces and a fierce crosscourt kill.

The second game followed a similar pattern, with Guy taking a 13/3 lead and tking the game 15/5. He was varying his serve to good effect, including a ferocious hammer to the right hand side that was landing first bounce over half way to the front wall. Tim was only able to deal with it once by the remarkable feat of taking it on the fly as it came off the back wall past his head. To the other side, Guy won many points by serving a variation of the American twist lawn tennis service.

In the third game Guy once more took a lead ,this time by 10/4 and then 11/7. Tim stuck to his task however and in one hand came back to lead 13/11 before being put out by a great back hand return from Guy off admittedly a rather loose serve from Tim ,who throughout the match did not win as many points from service aces as might be expected. He put Guy out in his turn and took the game for the loss of only one more point 15/12.

This reverse seemed to act as awake up call for Guy, who reached 11/3 in the fourth game in only two hands. Tim managed to fight back to 7/11 before losing serve and Guy reached Championship point in his next hand, before losing serve to a splendid backhand return down the line from Tim, who saved an additonal two match points before Guy took the game and the match 15/8, to win the title for the second time.

Other Links

.......................................................................................................................................

Read About The History Of Rackets

From its roots of a game played outside taverns, through to the modern game.

About The Past Champions

The past and present leading players of the game.

Find Out The Latest Results In The World Of Rackets

All the results, fixtures and draws for the UK game.