Australian Open 2020

Because of the low numbers and a late pull out from the World no 1 meant I had a bye in the Quarter Final and had to play against the very dangerous Keiran Booth. The best Amateur in the world.

I had disappointing loss to Kieran Booth 6/5 6/5 6/5. I give my hats off to him as he played very well and had a good game plan that caught me off guard first with his fast side wall serves and never adjusted to them well. I didn't panic despite feeling out of sorts as I thought if I just played steady that I would get enough mistakes from Kieran and then I would have no problem winning the match but that wasn’t the case as he was steady throughout.

First set I felt really hot on court for the first time as the previous practice days it was not that warm. The first set I was started off pretty well but kept losing games I should of won . A few of the games I was up with game points and I made some poor errors with simple balls to put a way for a winner which would resulted in me winning the game. All three sets were very similar in how they went with me fighting to stay in the sets and for rhythm. I didn’t serve great and Kieran punished me with my railroad. Looking back at the match I stuck with that serve for far too long and needed to mix it up a lot more. I also tried to be too clever with shots and didn’t need to be. I had one mind in preparing for Camden in the world eliminator with the shots I would need to play, like when I have an easy running volley defending a chase I kept trying to volley in to the hazards to win the point rather than smash it down the line, I did this because Camden can get everything back and I need to go for that high risk shot. I did not need to to that against Kieran. I also kept trying to hit a cut volley volley force for the dedan on the backhand side while trying to make it look like it I was hitting a normal cut volley. Normally I just hit it flat and I’m pretty accurate and if I do miss, I miss low. In the match I hit most of them up on the penthouse but I was stubborn so I kept trying it. I was doing that because Camden reads the players so well so I’m working on my disguise against him . The other thing that was disappointing was my main wall and staring forcing off the back wall was the worst I can remember for a long time which put more pressure on the rest of my game. It’s a tough loss but one to learn from.

I played in the doubles with Chris Chapman and we had a fairly straight forward path to the final

in the final we cam up against Kieran Booth and Brett Richardson

The first set we played well and won the set comfortably. We both were moving well and played solidly. I hit a volley in to the winning gallery to close out the set which was a cool way to win the set.

In the second Keiran and Brett got off to a strong start going 3/0 up , we were unlucky not to get a couple of those games but we stayed strong and got our selves back in to the set. We got it 4 all and 40/30 us and we were defending a chase and looked like we would win the point but a fortunate shot from Brett that hit the bandeau and then went in to the dedan which made it deuce and then we ended up losing that game to make it 4/5. We got it back to 5 all before they closed out the set. Keiran had a 100% record at 5all during the Aus open this year. He won 3 against me and 1 against Chris Chapman and now 1 in the doubles final.

The 3rd set we really played well and went 5/0 up then Brett and KB made a bit of comeback but fortunately we we closed out the set 6/3.

4th set was just not our set. They played well but we just couldn’t seem to get anything to go our way, with them pulling off some miraculous gets that looked liked the point was for sure over , to Brett hitting a insane shot behind his back off the return of serve beat a last gallery chase on an important point towards the end of the set.

We were now at 2 sets all after 3 hours of tennis. It was feeling hot on court. KB and Brett started out strong and we really felt the pressure from them. They went 2 love up and we did extremely well to take the 3rd game from 15/40 down. They did take the next game though to go 3/1 up. Chris’ mental strength when we’re under the pumped was impressive, he kept geeing me up, making sure I stayed focused. This really helped as it felt like the set and the match was going to slip away from us. We got the set to 4 all and were able to play some strong tennis under a lot of pressure to close out the match. It was an awesome feeling to win and that’s is now my 3rd grand slam in doubles. It was tough on Brett and KB that there had to be a loser as it was some excellent doubles on display