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Defending champion Bray warms up in style

Andy Bray

Andy Bray opened his defence of the singles title in the Heineken Open, breezing past Chris Budra 6-2, 6-1 in second round play at the W.E.R. Joell tennis stadium yesterday, in less then an hour.

While the defending champion was spraying thunderbolts all over the court, his opponent spent the majority of the match watching the sky for the balls to return to earth after each attempted return of serve.

After the match Bray said he was "just warming up to the task at hand," since this was his opening match. Yet he said he enjoyed the outing even though some of his own play was a bit erratic. That being the case after a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Budra, who is no slouch on the court himself, then the other players had better beware.

Bray, and the Island's only current professional player, James Collieson, are seeded to meet each other in Saturday's final and from yesterday's performances one could happily pencil in that date.

While Bray was `warming up' on Court One, Collieson appeared to be in full flow in his match with Graham Shirley on Court Three, winning 6-0, 6-0 where Shirley spent most of his time trying to sight that yellow blurred streak that kept passing by him.

In a complete contrast to play on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, not one match in Sunday's play went to three sets. In fact the most enthralling encounter came when teenager Morgan Lightbourne outlasted Lucy Windsor 7-6 (7-1), 6-3, taking just over two hours for the victory.

Move over Cayla Cross, the 12-year-old budding tennis star who stole the spotlight, and the hearts of the local tennis fraternity last year, there is a new teenager on the block in 13-year-old Caitlan Gordon who surprisingly breezed to a 6-2, 6-1 win in the highly anticipated battle of the `little tennis titans'.

Gordon not only had her opponent talking to herself throughout the one-sided match, but hitting a ball out of the stadium in disgust at one point and trying to `beat up' the court with her racquet on another occasion.

Gordon said she went on the court to achieve one objective, and that was to win the match. That she did in convincing fashion from the time she took control in the third game of the opening set when she broke her opponent after a brilliant exchange between the two up and coming youngsters. Gordon rifled a two-handed shot cross court that left Cross grasping air, and frustration, while facing a 2-4 deficit from which she never recovered.

In the second set Gordon raced off to a 5-0 lead with breaks in the second and fourth games before Cross held in the sixth to trail 5-1. By then, however, she knew the writing was on the wall and put up little resistance when Gordon closed out the match in the seventh game.

"I stayed focused because I know she is consistent and is continually improving," said Gordon, "so I just kept my head, played my game and didn't allow her to break my concentration.

"I had only one thought in my mind, to win."

While action in the Heineken Open tennis tournament started with a whimper following the rain on Thursday, and increased its pace on Friday, things exploded over the weekend with several nail biting clashes coupled with some marathon matches, and upsets.

The day started when unranked teenager John Masters pulled off possibly the biggest upset in one of the local tennis majors in recent memory when he not only defeated the Men's B top seed Dennis Harris, but he demolished the former champion in straight sets 6-0, 6-1. But the youngster, while still riding cloud nine, met his match later in the afternoon when he went down to Tony Thompson 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-2) in a three-hour thriller.

But those were merely appetisers as Thompson completed a three victory day. In addition to ousting young Masters, Thompson disposed of Frank Tersigni 6-4, 6-4 then teamed with young Morgan Lightbourne to defeat Jan and Jolanda Jarmula in straight sets 6-2, 6-3.

The unseeded pair of Allison and Paul Towlson ousted the fourth seeds Wendy Gelhay and Oliver Bain, winning 7-5, 6-3, while the third seeded pair of Tracey Berrell and Eugene Simmons defaulted their encounter to Velda Charles and Bill Nearon, when Berrell failed to show.

Meanwhile the top seeded Mixed Doubles pair of Gill Butterfield and Mike Currey did no more than warm-up against Romelle Warner and Romar Douglas on the way to a 6-1, 6-1 victory, while the second seeded pair of Lucy Windson and David Jenkins made an easy affair of defeating Jo Tucker and Richard Ranum 6-2, 6-3, and women's top seed Laverne Stowe opened her account with a straight sets victory over Shade Subair 6-2, 6-0.

In several of the strange matches of the day, Cayla Cross came from a set down to defeat Tracey Berrell 2-6, 6-0, 6-3; Wendi Ryland beat Shade Subir 6-4, 0-6, 6-2, while Jacklyn Lambert had to dig deep to oust Clare Warburton 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 while Gill Butterfield and Kelly Holland had a surprisingly easy time beating Barbara and Jacklyn Lambert 6-1, 6-2, while at the other end of the spectrum Johnnie Holland, had to scrap for every game on his way to a 7-5, 7-6 (10-8) victory over Chris Smith.