Marc Paulik beat Nick White 6-1 4-6 6-2
Doubles final:
Simon Brown/Andy Wheeler beat Kris Funston/Chris Patete 7-5 4-6 12-10
The singles semi-finals were an all first team affair. Marc Paulik beat Robbie Kirkness and Nick White beat Phil Seemann. Both matches were played on Saturday morning to set up an afternoon final between the two men who were shortly off to play in the German Bundesliga.
In what turned out to be an absorbing final Paulik came through 6-1 4-6 6-2. Nick White did well to get back into the match after an excellent first set from Marc, who played deep and deployed his legendary backhand to good effect. In the second set Nick moved up the court and worked Marc very hard with some excellent angles, particularly off his backhand. But in the final set Marc looked a bit fresher and sealed the match with more excellent play, including a couple of memorable backhands down the line.
Phil Seemann and Marc Paulik were due to play the doubles together but had to drop out, due to Marc's Bundesliga commitments. That opened up the draw for the rest of the field! Speculation was rife that they hadn't fancied their first round game against Kris Funston and Chris Patete. Kris and Chris took advantage and stormed through to the final, with a 6-0 7-6 win over Steve Newman and Neville Thorn in the semis. They didn't have it all their own way though, coming back from 5-2 down in the second and having to save setpoints on Kris' serve.
In the other half myself and Andy Wheeler battled through. We had a 6-4 7-5 win against Mark Upton and Brian Francis, who put up some very spirited opposition. Then won our semi 6-2 6-4 against Chris Schilling and Dave Geange.
The final turned out to be a real classic. Andy and I won the first set 7-5. Chris and Kris came back to take the second set 6-4, and then go 4-1 up in the final set. Then we fought back to 4-4 and from then on it was nip and tuck all the way to 10-10! We had to serve to stay in the match several times, but also missed two chances to serve the match out.Finally at 10-10 we managed to break the solid Funston serve, and then wrap the match up on my serve. To the end there was drama. Chris and Kris saved two match points at 40-0 down to get back to 40-30. On the third match point we had to play a let as someone threw a stray ball on to our court as I served. It was a generous gesture from Chris/Kris, as the serve I hit went out and a few other players would have tried to claim the point!
So Andy and I finally wobbled over the line at 4pm, having started at 12:30. Conservative estimates placed Chris Patete's banana consumption at 5.We had a good crowd on the balcony, though a fair few were players who'd come down for club play at 2pm and wanted the court! We thank them for their patience and hope they enjoyed the game a bit.
Great to win back the title that we took two years ago. And the standard and spirit of the final were both terrific.
