Grass Season - Gerry Webber #1

After the grass courts of Nottingham it was off to Germany for the qualifying of the ATP250 tournament in Halle Westfallen, near Berlin, on the famed grass courts of the Gerry Webber "Stadion". Greg had played before, as Junior, at the Gerry Webber complex, which comprises the Main Stadium, the Sportpark Hotel, the Sportpark Plaza Sports Centre and a Function Centre, for promotion of the Gerry Webber clothing line. He has good memories of when he met and watched the World Cup Soccer with Roger Federer and other Australians. Federer is of course a five time winner of the tournament and Aussie Tony Roche was his coach at that time in 2006.

The Sportpark Courts and Hotel

Greg was drawn to play German Stefan Seifert, a 28 year-old player currently ranked 382, with a high rank of 228 last year. With Greg serving first, games went with serve to 3-3, Greg getting the better of the games, holding serve easier. Then against the run of play, serving with the old balls in game 7, Greg went 0-40 down and was ignomiously broken to love to trail 3-4. Seifert then consolidated the break to lead 5-3.

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German Stefan Seifert



 Greg got back into the groove holding the next game to love, then fighting back, bringing up a break point opportunity on Seifert's serve, and converting to get back on serve at 4-5. Greg then again held to love, closing out the game with an ace, putting the pressure on Seifert  to serve to stay in the set. With his confidence growing Greg got Seifert to 15-40, and had two set points, converting the second chance to break Seifert in consecutive service games and pouch the first set 7-5.

Westfallen street scene



Greg held serve in the second set, then immediately had Seifert facing break-points at 15-40 but this time Seifert held firm, and denied Greg the break. Greg was not fazed and held serve before forcing Seifert to deuce and then breaking him, to lead 3-1. Greg consolidated the break before again returning well and breaking Seifert, despite the German serving five first serves, to lead 5-1. Serving for the match Greg got behind 15-30 but recovered with some good serves, to close out the set 6-1, and advance to the second round of qualifying with a somewhat nervy 7-5 first set but a good quality high percentage second 6-1 set.

Greg improved all match, going from a low 57% first serve percentage in the first set to 76% in the second set, with a good win ratio of over 80% in both sets. He returned well in the second set, which enabled him to break his opponent twice.