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XD
[1] Robertson & Wallwork bt [2] Clark & Olver
21/15, 21/11 (32m)
The smile that had to be postponed
Richard Eaton reports
Jenny Wallwork's mile-wide smile after winning the first
national title of her career briefly illuminated the arena as
much as the brightness of the performances with which she and
Nathan Robertson quelled Anthony Clark and Heather Olver.
But it also illustrated an important little dilemma. “I was so
pumped up and I'm really glad we won – I'm so thrilled,”
Wallwork said, but she already noticed that Robertson had
restricted himself just to a controlled smile and brief
congratulations.
Both had other finals later in the afternoon, making control of
the emotions as important as maintaining economy in the energy
levels. The latter both of them certainly achieved in a mixed
doubles final which lasted only 32 minutes, and saw them get
well on top after taking the first game.
 That
happened after a prolonged tussle in the middle part of it, when
Clark and Olver, playing in only their second tournament
together, fought hard to claw back a two-point deficit but could
not.
Olver's movement was excellent, but a little net shot mistake
put her and Clark 12-15 down, whereupon the marauding Robertson
produced a typically brilliant switched direction winner,
Wallwork followed that with a quick kill at the net, and
suddenly the favourites' lead had reached unassailable lengths.
Clark walked quickly away after the crucial first game had got
away from them, and soon the match was running away from him at
an irretrievable speed.
Although Wallwork had tumbled over backwards anticipating
Clark's shot at game point which never came over the net, she
got up to produce her best spell of the match. With Robertson
simultaneously making Olver's life difficult, the favourites
took 13 of the first 14 points in the second game, and that
sequence all but ended the contest.
There followed one spectacular flying dive by Clark, but
Robertson managed to cap even that. After one point he rolled
over with both legs in the air, held the position for a couple
of moments, and laying flat on his back for several seconds. The
limelight has often held a special attraction for him.
“It's brilliant to play with someone who has been there and done
it,” Wallwork said later, but then she want away and tried to
compose herself for what was to come.
 Robertson
made wry remarks about being nice to selectors while choosing
his partnerships, and then extolled the virtues of this one.
“It's always hard to take a new partnership forward but we have
definitely come forward in the last six months,” he said.
“We are capable of competing against the best in the world now
and it's looking good for the future.”
Their problem has now become Clark's and Olver's. For a pair
which has only had a handful of matches together, the runners-up
did not produce a bad performance. Although the result meant
that Clark had lost his title, it had been a helpful, bonding
week.
Had Olver felt the pressure? “I wouldn't say there was much
pressure because Anthony is very encouraging and I try to listen
to everything he says,” she said. “And I don't mind of the
autograph hinters are going for him.”
“We were nowhere near as well prepared as any of the other pairs
in this tournament, so we did well,” commented Clark. “So we
shouldn't be expecting too much at this stage , even though we
are proud players and teain hard.
He might have added that it's never easy playing against your
best buddy. But he had already altered his mindset for the
biggest of all changes - playing with Robertson, instead of
against him. |
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WS
[1] Liz Cann bt [2] Helen Davies 23/21, 21/15
(37m)
Cann can calls the
tune
Richard Eaton reports
Sure enough, it was a rough road for Liz Cann right till the
moment when she won the women's singles title back, captured it
for a fourth time, and became only the second player ever to
regain it three times.
Cann's 23-21, 21-15 win over second-seeded Helen Davies required
her to save three critically important game points in the first
game, to come from 13-14 down in the second, and to keep the lid
on her younger opponent's confidence levels by increasing her
aggression at the big moments.
 That
followed Cann's second round struggle and her tight semi-final,
and in some ways mirrored the recovery which required her to
labour long and hard after the car crash which injured her back,
and subjected her to six months' huge effort to regain full
physiological and match fitness.
It also atoned for Cann's disappointment last year, when she
held five match points and lost the title to Jill Pittard, who
decided it had been a career highlight and retired. For a player
like Cann, still with Super Series ambitions, that was a blow.
But this may prove a landmark recovery for the favourite. “It's
really good to get the title back,” Cann said. “I was very
disappointed last year, and I always hoped to get it back this
year.
“But she (Davies) played very well and didn't give me any easy
points, so I had to work for it.”
The first signs of danger came after Cann got away to a 10-6
lead. Then, buoyed by local support, and free from the pressure
of expectations now that she had justified her seeding, Davies
played better.
She got in some good overhead blows, scored with a kill to the
body, then with a smash to the body, and advanced quickly,
winning seven points out of eight up to a 14-11 lead.
Cann responded by hopping on the spot between rallies, by
improving the punch and the accuracy of her clears, and by
hunting more keenly for the first opportunity to attack anything
that was short.
She began to make progress again, and then won the best rally of
the first game after an exchange of clears from which she
crafted a sudden, clipped drop, and followed it in to make a
snappy net shot winner. The momentum from that took her from
14-all to 16-14 and then 17-15.
But then Cann made a couple of mistakes, before allowing a
Davies serve to drop in, and all of a sudden the local hope was
on the brink of taking an important, perhaps match-altering,
lead.
It was then that Cann found a brave cross-court smash and
polished off a weak return, before doing the same thing three
points later when Davies stood at 21-20. A smash and a kill,
followed by a clear and a smash down the line then got Cann the
game and made her breathe more easily.
Something similar happened in the critical phases of the second
game. From 15-15 Cann won all her points courtesy of lively
movement and some potent smashing, never allowing Davies to get
the first good blow in.
“I tried to enjoy it, but it was a shame I didn't take those
chances in the first game,” said Davies. ”But I thought I played
all right.”
Cann's performance was also flawed, but in the context it was a
significant triumph. It may even re-open a door to wider
success. Even at the age of 30 she believes it is not too late
to make the improvement need to achieve success on the
international stage. |
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MS
[1] Rajiv Ouseph bt [3] Carl Baxter
21/15, 13/21, 21/7 (48m)
Raj is the king again
Richard Eaton reports
Raj Ouseph overcame a wobble, a long and contentious argument
with the referee, and an ambitiously improving sparring partner,
to become only the third player to win the national men's
singles title three times in a row.
Ouseph's 21-15, 13-21, 21-7 win over Carl Baxter was less easy
than his victory over the same player in last year's final, but
it still underlined him as the country's most steadily
developing men's singles player, for both finalists are now
playing at a higher level.
Ouseph did suffer from wandering concentration, both after
achieving a long first game lead, and then again through much of
the second game, but in the third he was focussed and full of
creative excellence, deft at the net and much more penetrating
when trying to get the shuttle down.
 “Carl
played pretty well out there,” said Ouseph. “He played really
well last night (against Andrew Smith) and today he put me under
pressure, so I had to come out and do something about it.”
When he eventually did, racing to an 11-2 third game lead it
seemed that nothing, not even a revitalised Baxter, would stop
Ouseph. But a piece of prolonged farce did.
It happened after the umpire incorrectly called the score 11-3,
and Ouseph walked up to his chair to contest it. After a long
chat, nothing happened, whereupon Baxter came up to have a few
words too.
Ouseph walked away, only to reappear before the umpire again,
saying “just tell me when he got the third point,” while the
umpire repeated several times “it's 11-3”, with the crowd
beginning to murmur and grumble.
 Eventually
one spectator called out “you've got the score wrong!” which
seemed to settle the matter, but not before the scoreboard moved
Baxter's score erratically from three to 5 to 10, eventually
rolling it back to 2.
Baxter capitalised on the disturbance by winning the next three
points, but it came too late to get him back into the match, and
his best moments really happened while recovering from an
indifferent start.
 From
8-15 he went to 13-15, moving more freely, handling the net
exchanges better, and fashioning more opportunities to attack
Ouseph. His body language also began to bristle more, and at
16-14 the champion decided to alter the emphasis of his game a
little.
Ouseph played the shuttle less often to the net, struck clears
more frequently, and looked for openings to smash, although it
was with a characteristic inside out backhand, superbly
disguised and flicked from the net, that he got to game point.
He converted it with a sliced smash/flat cross-court switch/hard
smash to the floor combination, which showed how much more
forceful his game has become. And in the final game, as he
approached the finish line, Ouseph's aggression had a touch of
swagger to it.
Baxter had little answer, and even though afterwards he seemed
subdued, he had positive things to take from this final. “I
played all right last night,” he said, referring to his victory
over Smith. I played quite well today. But Raj played a bit
quicker in the third and I couldn't cope with it very well.” |
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WD
[1] Wallwork & White bt [2] Agathangelou & Olver
21/19, 21/23, 21/11 (62m)
Jenny does the double
and achieves an atonement
Richard Eaton reports
Jenny Wallwork became the only woman to win two titles, as she
and Gabby White achieved atonement for last year's
disappointment by beating Heather Olver and Mariana Agathangelou
21-19, 21-23, 21-11 in a women's doubles final with a meandering
course and of long drawn out rallies.
Last year Wallwork and White blew two match points in an
ultra-tense final; now they established such a long and early
final game lead that they were able to cross the finish line
with a few smiles and a joke.
It was not a great match, for both pairs found it hard to put
the shuttle away, but it may nevertheless have its own
significance, for four up-and-coming young players may become
more dangerous for the confidence they should have taken from
this week's successes.
Especially Wallwork. She handled the pressure of being top seed
both in the mixed and women's doubles very well, though her
pleasure in her victories was tempered by the fact that her
parents Brian and Jill, both former England internationals, were
not there to witness them.
“It's the first year they haven't watched. And it's the first
time I've won a title – I'm gutted,” she said, nevertheless
displaying a huge smile. Mum and dad had apparently been on
holiday. And their absence may just have reduced the pressure on
their daughter.
Her mixed doubles success she attributed to having gained much
greater experience this year with a partner, Nathan Robertson,
who is still one of the greatest exponents of this discipline in
the world. That has created confidence in her.
“I am very much a confidence player,” Wallwork said. “I want to
be in people's faces and showing pressure on court. That's one
thing I want to do every time.”
 Her
women's doubles partnership with White is a tribute to the
progress of a young combination which has time to follow in the
footsteps of English legends, like Gilks and Perry, and English
greats like Clark and Gowers, and Emms and Kellogg.
“We knew we had to play well,” said White. “We lost a bit of
concentration in the second game and they took us by surprise,
but we got through it in the end.”
And Wallwork got through a tournament in which she played five
matches on Saturday and two more today. “It was very tough,” she
said. “But no matter how hard I was determined to keep going all
day. You just have to be professional and get in and out of the
matches as quickly as possible.”
The importance of all this was mostly as a stepping stone for
the future, Wallwork acknowledged, but despite that it would
still be a day she would always remember. “And I know my parents
would really loved to have been here,” she added. |
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MD
[1] Robertson & Clark bt [2] Adcock & Blair
21/14, 21/19 (33m)
Record for Clark; double for Robertson;
great escape completed by the legends
Richard Eaton reports
Anthony Clark achieved a record-breaking ninth successive
national men's doubles title and Nathan Robertson achieved two
national titles for the third time in his career, as England's
two most famous players capitalised on one of the greatest
escapes that even they can ever have had.
 Clark
and Robertson completed all that with a 21-14, 21-19 win in the
final over Robert Blair and Chris Adcock, which avenged a loss
in the Denmark Open four months ago, and which caused people to
marvel at the resilience of the two 32-year-olds.
Robertson and Clark had faced each other in the mixed doubles
final earlier in the afternoon and had had four tough matches
the previous day, the last of which involved an amazing escape
from a game and 13-19 down to Chris Langridge and Robin
Middleton and had a body-hammering finish at 10 o'clock at
night.
“My body felt good when I woke up,” claimed Robertson. “But my
wrist felt worse. It was badly bruised after being hit by
Anthony's racket and I had to ice it a lot. Fortunately it
doesn't hurt when I hit the shuttle – only when someone touches
it.”
Nevertheless, the two old-timers suffered an alarming wobble at
the end, when Blair and Adcock suddenly got into it, coming back
from 5-15 down in the second game to 19-all, with all the
momentum hurtling in their favour.
At this stage some of the rallies were brilliant and thrilling
and roused the crowd to great excitement for the first time.
Previously Robertson and Clark had the edge in the flat
exchanges and changed the pace around better too. But had the
younger pair pushed through into a final game, it was possible
to imagine a different outcome.
Instead at 19-19 Clark played a tight low return to Adcock's
serve and managed a well-placed push which caused Adcock to jab
the shuttle in the net. Then at match point Robertson came up
with an audacious flick serve, and followed it with a testing
jab which caused Blair to lift the shuttle long.
Clark and Robertson embraced immediately, Clark looked at the
ceiling in relief, and after shaking hands with the umpire, the
two friends embraced again. “It's fantastic for Anthony to win
nine, and I think we are one of the top pairs in the world,”
said Robertson.
Inevitably Robertson and Blair were watched closely for signs of
bad vibes following the hostile remarks between them before last
year's European team championships.
Once in the first game Robertson stared aggressively after his
smash had set up a chance for Clark to hammer the shuttle
through Blair's defences, and on another occasion Robertson
uttered an ostentatious noise after producing a brilliant
flick-block from the net over Blair's head.
Blair by contrast was icy and ruthlessly focussed all through,
taking the chance offered by their spectacular surge in the
second game to produce some brilliant badminton, and indicating
that he remains one of England's more valuable and least vaunted
players.
In fact it was Adcock who erupted into aggression which landed
him in a little trouble, when he reacted strongly to having his
smashed unluckily called out at 6-2 in the second game. The
young left-hander swore and was shown a yellow card. “No, no -
it was a terrible call,” he complained.
 “It
doesn't matter who is on the other side of the net when you are
playing,” Robertson reckoned, when asked about the atmosphere in
which he thought the match had been played. “It's no secret
there have been differences between Robert and me, but you still
play professionally all the same.
“There will always be rivalries, and hopefully we will get some
new coaches in soon and develop the squad,” he added pointedly.
Blair politely acknowledged that Robertson and Blair "played
very well” and self-effacingly thought that he and Adcock should
be “grateful for getting to the final” after their scare the
night before against Andrew Ellis and Dean George. And with that
the tournament ended on a restrained and dignified note. |
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