04-Dec-2011
The News
KARACHI: Chris Simpson kept English title hopes alive in the quarter-finals of the Coronation London Open after surviving a brutal five-game match to upset top seeded Pakistani player Aamir Atlas Khan at the Cumberland Lawn Tennis Club in north-west London.
The unseeded Guernsey-born, 24-year-old Simpson found a game plan and stuck to it well to claw his way back into the game after a slow start. A cat and mouse scenario ensued at 10-all, but it was the underdog who came out on top, thanks to some dominant forehand lengths and impeccably tight drops.
Aamir’s threat level rose and fell throughout the match.
A more dominant phase saw the 21-year-old from Peshawar cause Simpson some serious problems as he claimed the second game. But Simpson worked well and came to hold three game balls in the third.
With a maturity resembling England’s very top players, he patiently waited for his opportunity to close out the game.
In another dominant spell in the fourth game, the Pakistani No1, ranked 26th in the world circuit, forced Simpson to the front more often and avoided his strong forehand side in favour of the backhand wall. This period saw him level the match at two-all to set up a tense decider.
Simpson sprang to a four-point lead early on in the fifth, but the gap was quickly closed. The players remained within a point of each other until nine-all when the referee called Khan’s retrieval a double bounce, to conflicting reactions from both the crowd and players. Simpson, ranked 25 places lower than Aamir, again kept a methodical head throughout the final rally and finished off the match-ball on the first attempt to win 15-13, 7-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9 after 71 minutes.
Quarter-finals: Chris Simpson (ENG) bt [1] Aamir Atlas Khan (PAK) 15-13, 7-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9 (71m)[3] Borja Golan (ESP) bt Andrew Wagih Shoukry (EGY) 11-4, 11-6, 11-7[4]
Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY) bt [Q] Eddie Charlton (ENG) 9-11, 11-8, 11-6, 13-15, 11-7 (76m)[2] Stephen Coppinger (RSA) bt Mark Krajcsak (HUN) 11-9, 11-5, 11-5 (36m).
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