Beatriz Haddad Maia Awaits
Janie was doing so well with the Leamington real tennis crowd at lunch the day before, until she announced that we would be seeing “proper tennis” at Edgbaston Priory the next day. Following a stoney silence, lunch was swiftly over. At least, that’s how I’m choosing to remember it.
Mercifully, the fellas refrained from reposting with the phrase “girlie tennis”, which I had previously suggested to them would not go down well with Janie.
Anyway – another day, another form of tennis. Lawn tennis. On proper lawns. Quarter finals day at Edgbaston Priory. A blisteringly hot and sunny day. A sun factor and water aplenty day.
First up – Sorana Cirstea against Donna Vekic. A really good match, this. Such a long match that I even went for a quick walk to top up my water bottle between sets during the first match of the day. Unprecedented.
At one point during the final set, Donna Vekic threw herself at a wide ball (unsuccessfully), hurtling straight towards our front row position close to the baseline. She stopped at the barrier right in front of me, looked me straight in the eye and emitted the single-word, modern tennis court oath (as described in this performance piece – click here).
In the end Sorana Cirstea prevailed 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.
Next up, Beatriz Haddad Maia (depicted in headline picture) completing a Round Of 16 match against Magdalena Frech.
While they were warming up, we spotted Camila Giorgi’s mad dad (he’s hard to miss) who was taking a not-particularly-surreptitious look at the other players in the tournament.
Frech was 4-2 up in the deciding set overnight, but Haddad-Maia took advantage of the overnight break to take the match and progress.
Janie and I then took a break from the heat, as we did a couple of times during that day. We wandered to the bar overlooking Court 1 and took some shade. We also took some iced coffee in the refreshments tent.
When we returned to our seats, the match between Shuai Zhang and Dayana Yastremska was quite advanced. We had caught some of the first set on the screens while sitting in the shade. We then watched the remainder of that match and indeed the remainder of the day’s play live.
Shuai won in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4, over Dayana Yastremska, but it looked far from straightforward and Yastremska still looks like “one to watch” in my book.
The worst of the heat was starting to ease; in any case we stuck around to see the remaining two matches, the first of which being the match between Britain’s Katie Boulter and Simona Halep.
The first set was very watchable but Simona Halep took complete control quite early in the second set to win 6-4, 6-1.
Last up was Beatriz Haddad Maia against Camila Giorgi, which looked on paper to be the best (and potentially closest) match up of the day.
But Camila was not at her best after a strong early start. Beatriz Haddad-Maia winning 6-3, 6-2.
One of the longest days of the year, it was still well light when we got home and we made full use of the garden to have our major picnic as an evening meal, having only taken a minor picnic with us to the ground on such a hot day.
Lovely it was.
We were supposed to do it all again on the Saturday for the semi-finals, but the temperature dropped by 15 degrees and it rained all day. That’s the English summer for you.
But we did have a great meal at Colbeh in the evening – a repeat for Janie of 2017 and a repeat of several visits for me.
