A rare sighting of Chris Bray, Chris Swallow & Henry de Lord, on court together
A brace of late changes allowed me the possibility of witnessing a rare, possibly unique, competitive bout between “The Lord’s Chrises” – Bray and Swallow.
Firstly, a most unfortunate accident on court for Robert Shenkman at Hampton Court Palace the previous weekend. While Rob is without doubt an unstoppable force in amateur real tennis, the walls of the Royal Tennis Court are also, without doubt, immovable objects. Fortunately, come the Thursday before the Cull matches, Rob was showing off his wound with a big smile and “no real harm done” chat at Lord’s, when we ran into him…
…but he was still to be off games with a doctor’s note for the David Cull Trophy. In stepped Chris Bray, our senior professional and former world No 2, to take up the top seed place for the Cull tournament. Hence a likely semi-final between our two pros, Chris Bray and Chris Swallow.
Secondly, a chance change to Janie’s hairdressing calendar, which meant that lunchtime on Saturday 25th was to be her rescheduled hair slot.
In that case, I’ll go to Lord’s and watch the semi-finals of the David Cull Trophy…
…said I. Once Janie found out what she would be missing, she bemoaned not being available herself, although I doubt if I’d have been able to drag her away from a sunny afternoon at home for indoor tennis that day.
The David Cull Trophy is a relatively new/renewed invitational competition, played level, open to amateurs and professionals with affiliation to or membership of the MCC.
The match between Messrs Bray and Swallow was an excellent watch. Chris Bray has not played competitively for years, while Chris Swallow still does play the occasional competitive match.
Both players had to play a quarter final in the morning before taking on each other in the semi-final.
I have scraped the final few minutes of all of the sets from the two semi-finals.
Let’s join the Bray v Swallow match at 4-4 in the first set:
Now let’s join the second set at 3-3:
The second semi-final was between two of our (MCC’s) very best amateurs: Neil Roxburgh and Ben Yorston.
This match was also a very good watch.
Let’s join the first set at 3-3:
Afficionados might notice that the second match was marked by Chris Bray, hot off his 22 game marathon with Chris Swallow. At one point during the first set, when dropping off some balls in the dedans, Chris said, “starting to seize up a bit now”, which was unsurprising but spoke volumes about his enduring commitment to his work. I sense that he wanted to have a good close look at Neil and Ben’s play.
Let’s now join the second set at 5-1. Neil went through a lull at the end of the first and the start of the second. You’ll see signs of revival and some excellent rests in this final reel:
So there you have it. The final will be on Sunday 2 August at 1:00 pm between Chris Bray and Ben Yorston. Anyone with access to the ground for the Middlesex v Yorkshire cricket match that day (i.e. MCC members, Middlesex CCC members and/or anyone with a ticket for the cricket match) is welcome to have a look. It should be a truly excellent match and could well be a close one, with youth and recent tournament practice on Ben’s side, while Chris brings experience, albeit less recent, from the very highest level of match play.
It’s a shame that Janie and I won’t be there…unless changing circumstance intervenes yet again.
If any readers have a crazy craving for watching all of the quarter-final and semi-final action from that day, a seven hours of streaming is still up there to be seen/skimmed.