R1: Millie Tomlinson (Eng) 3-2 Anna Serme (Cze) 10-12, 12-10, 13-11, 8-11, 11-6 (62m)
You only have to look at the score to see how hard those two worked today. Last time Millie played a PSAevent was here, in Blackball in December, and she had to retire due to her Achille’s injury. And today, adding to that foot that might not be as fine as it could be, I could see Millie massaging the right quads as well with Ibuprofen. She never mentioned the injury when we spoke at the end, which is all credit to her but I feel she might have scrapped through that one.
On the other side of the rind, Anna also had a sign that her body was not at its best, a bandage around the left arm/elbow. So you might have thought that the girls were going to take it a bit easy on court…
Yeah right.
It was a true battle of spirits, of will, of determination. The two first game were won on tie break, one each 12/10 11m each game. Millie seemed to take the advantage in the third, 9/5 but it was an incredible fight from Mrs Serme, clawing back to 9/9, then saving one game ball before setting one of her own. Still, it’s the English that got that one, 15m battle, 13/11.
Was Anna going to fold? Course not. Another big battle on there, 7/7, 8/8, but a few tired errors creeping at the end of the game from Millie, and it was all level 2/2 after Anna won the 4th 11/8 in 10m.
The fifth is all about experience I feel, Anna close up to mid game, 5/5, 6/6, but going for a bit too much too early, making some crucial errors at the business end of the match, while Millie just got back to the basics, as in deep the ball goes. And it worked…
Millie:
She has a flick that really caught me up, and she is also very agile, she moves around very well, and I helped her at the start by making far too many errors.
I didn’t play my best today but I’m happy to get through, happy I didn’t fold mentally, that I didn’t give up.
