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Tim at the Albert Hall - see inside IP: 77.100.116.56 Posted on December 13, 2015 at 08:27:29 PM by Jean
Apologies for the delay but I hope you enjoy reading this report on Tim's match against James Blake on the Wednesday evening. I'm not sure what happened to the TV coverage this year, with Sky picking up just Saturday's play instead of ITV4, who've shown from the Friday for the last few years. At least that meant we saw Tim's match against El Aynaoui, though unfortunately not the final against defending champion Fernando Gonzalez. In case you missed the result of that Tim raced through the first set 6-1 but Gonzo came back to win the second 7-6 and then closed out the match 10-6 in the Champions tiebreak. Anyway, here's what happened on Wednesday:
Royal Albert Hall Dec 2nd 2015
Tim v James Blake
This was a highly entertaining match, played in great spirit – Tim produced some vintage touches of brilliance at the net and some of the rallies were amazing. Hopefully James Blake enjoyed it enough to return next year, as he definitely has the right attitude for the Champions’ Tour, with some serious tennis but plenty of entertainment thrown in as well. And his forehand still packs a pretty powerful punch …
An innovation this year was the “Aegon Crowd Call” feature – instead of Hawkeye the spectators were given large cards with “IN” on one side and “OUT” on the other which had to be displayed when a player challenged a call. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that the decisions tended to be subject to a certain amount of favouritism!
Blake won the toss and chose to receive. The first 4 games went comfortably with serve, then it started getting a bit closer. In the 5th game Tim’s first serve deserted him and errors saw him facing 0-40 before he re-focused, winning the next 5 points to hold for 3-2. By this time both players had obviously got a good feel for the court and the next game was also close, with a couple of great rallies as the score see-sawed between them. The final point was an ace which the line judge called out, so Blake invoked the audience challenge system, although Tim actually confirmed the ball was in anyway. 3-3.
2 more games were safely held for 4 all, then Tim had a bit of a nightmare and was broken to 15 after a string of errors. He did his best to get it back but some good serving helped Blake serve out the set 6-4 – this was not going according to plan! While Tim had played his part in the rallies and produced some lovely touches at the net, his serve had proved a bit too unreliable …
And so to set 2 – Tim’s serving improved and he held throughout, while Blake had to work much harder. He was taken to 3 deuces in his first service game before holding, then Tim put more pressure on and got the breakthrough for 3-1. 3 more games went with serve which left Blake serving to stay in the set at 2-5. The opening point was a real teaser, Tim pulling Blake in with a drop shot then lobbing him, and some more fun rallies ended with Tim breaking again to close out the set 6-2.
So the match would be decided by a Champions Tie Break, with the winner being the first to 10 points. Tim served first and points stayed on serve to 4-4, when Tim’s forehand volley was called long giving Blake a mini break. However, the call was overturned by the crowd when Tim challenged, so he was saved! He then engineered a mini break of his own for 6-5, losing it again straight away to a sizzling service return winner cross court. 6-6.
The following point saw both players sprinting around the court in a terrific rally which ended with a winning shot from Tim. He raised his arms in triumph before bending over and then heading to the linesman’s chair to catch his breath – maybe not quite as fit as he used to be … 7-6. Blake won both his service points then a netted backhand from Tim set up 2 match points for Blake at 7-9. A good serve saved the first then Blake tried to finish off another energetic rally with a drop shot, only for Tim to chase it down and whip a winning pass cross court! 9-9.
Luckily he had a chance to catch his breath as they changed ends, then Blake had to wait while a few spectators wandered in before slamming down an ace to set up his third match point. Tim found a good first serve and Blake’s return was confirmed wide after a challenge, then Tim finished off another terrific rally at the net to create a match point of his own at 11-10. When Blake’s first forehand sailed wide to concede the match it was almost an anti-climax after the amazing rallies that had come before, but I’m sure Tim was more than happy to have come safely through!
They were both interviewed on court afterwards but unfortunately the PA system didn’t seem to be working very well and I found it very difficult to hear what they were saying, though I did catch Tim’s comment about it being good to have James on the tour.
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