Cancelled late last year due to the snow, this was my 4th attempt at a Butterfly Grand Prix event. I entered just the one day in to both bands. After competing previously in the Wolverhampton Open this year in bands 4 and 5 for some reason my points had been reset to 0 and I was back down to bands 5 and 6. This was later discovered to be an error on their part. Regardless, here is how the day of tournament fun unfolded for me.
Band 6 @ 8:45
My first match of the day was versus Robin Honey, a slow spinny forehand loop wich I found very difficult to control. His style was pretty unorthadox and I found it very difficult to adjust in time to make a difference. After making many basic unforced errors I went down 3-1 in a dissapointing fashion. My second match was against Mikael Papantoniou, a young looper which seemed proficiant on both wings. I enjoyed this match much more because he played a simmilar game to me. He would move right around the backhand side to play many of his forehand strokes. I took this game 3-2 however it was a very close match in general.
My final match was against James Houghton, he seemed a very laid back experienced player. Very tall and most parts of his game seemed to resemble a blocking style. He had a great forehand hit and was much too consistent. The majority of his serves were very simple top spin serves directly to my crossover point. Sounds like a simple problem to deal with but he varied the lengths very well and kept me guessing as to where I should be stood for the serve. I lost 3-2 but the deciding game was very much one sided.
Band 5 @ 13:00
I felt ready for band 5 after a quick sulk (thanks for the support Claire) about my failings in band 6. The venue was nice and warm by this time and everything felt nice and loose. My shots were coming off nicely against my first opponent in the group, Mark Dawson. Even though he squished me 3-0 without me ever really being in front I enjoyed the match and stayed close at all times. I was determined to get through the group and my second opponent was Mark Stanfield (ranked 84 in this tournament). This was the highest ranked player in any of my groups for the day, and lucky for me I really stepped up my game. I managed to get a series of great 3rd ball attacks on target and quickly took a 2-0 lead. He manged to scrape back to a 2-1 and at one point he had an advantage in the tiebreak. But I just manged to pull through 14-12 in the 4th.
My final opponent in the group was a sulky George Powis who didnt seem to make any attempt to play properly, 3-0. I then moved on to the next round as runner up of the group. My round one apponent was a very steady 2 winged looper. Much faster than me and far more consistent. I didnt really get close to taking a game but it made me seriously quesiton my fitness level, and how this needs to improve if I ever want to move up in this sport.
In Summary..
In summary I was dissapointed with my band 6 performance as I should have really gone deep into that band. However I feel one majour improvement to my performance would be to stop over at some kind of accomodation the night before an event like this so that I dont have the stress of driving all the way down in the morning. Time to prepare for the Liverpool Open in August :).
