The Brodies Champions of Tennis tournament produced a second fantastic day of entertainment at Stockbridge yesterday with four competitive games from the top class field.
Swede Thomas Enqvist and former UK number One Tim Henman started the proceedings with a closely fought contest. Enqvist took the first set 6-3, but Henman fought back and took the second by the same margin.There are no third sets in the tournament, so the game was decided with a ‘ten point’ tie break which Enqvist won.
The afternoon session ended with a doubles match where Goran Ivanisevic and Mikael Pernfors beat Wayne Ferreira and Mark Philippoussis 8-5.
Greg Rusedski then played his doubles partner from last night, Carlos Moya in the first evening game, and took a 2-1 lead but then needed a medical time out and some physio before returning to the court. Moya then won the next three games to take a 4-2 lead, and although Rusedski pulled one back, Moya again broke his serve to win the set 6-3.
Rusedski started the second set strongly and broke Moya’s serve in the first game. He then held serve to lead 5-3, but Moya then won the next four games to take the set 7-5 and win the match.
The last game of the day featured the man everyone wanted to see, John McEnroe who partnered Tim Henman against Mark Philippoussis and Wayne Ferreira.
The former Wimbledon champion received a fantastic welcome from the large crowd, and immediately delighted everyone by complaining about a line judge’s decision, then throwing his racket away in disgust when someone in the crowd shouted ‘Come on Andy.’ He then ordered the umpire to warn Philippoussis about his behaviour when he did the same.
Between playing to the crowd, there was some superb tennis including several unbelievable trick shots, although it was obvious to all that both pairs were keen to win the game.
At 4-3 up, McEnroe and Henman broke their opponents serve, then held theirs to go 6-3 up. Philippoussis and Ferreira won the next game to make it 6-4, but McEnroe and Henman held their nerve and made it 7-4. They then missed a match point before Philippoussis and Ferreira pulled one back, but held their serve to take the match 8-5.
Afterwards John McEnroe said: “Thank you for coming out, the crowd was great and it’s good to be back here. Doubles is the one for me. I only have to cover a bit of the court and Tim does the rest.”
Saturday’s order of play starts with John McEnroe versus Mikael Pernfors at 2pm, then Carlos Moya plays Mark Philippoussis then finally Thomas Enqvist takes on Goran Ivanisevic.
Photographs by John Preece:
http://www.photoboxgallery.com/jlp-photography
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
