Oz Grass Update #3

Quarter-finals of the singles in the Futures tournament in Mildura and Greg's opponent was 25 year-old Colin Ebelthite from Adelaide. Ebelthite's ranking has plummeted to 497 on the back of injuries over the last six months but, with a high rank of 209 and a solid win over the No.6 seed John Millman in the previous round, would be a force to be reckoned with.
With Ebelthite serving first games went with serve to 3-2. Greg then went 15-40 down on his serve, saved one break-point but could not prevent Ebelthite from breaking his serve and going 4-2 up. Greg could not make any in-roads into Ebelthite's service games and games went with serve until Ebelthite served out the 1st set, winning it 6-3.

In the 2nd set it was again Ebelthite who got an early break up to lead 3-1. At 4-2 up he again broke Greg's serve to serve for the match at 5-2, which he did with not too much trouble winning the set 6-2 and bundling Greg out of the tournament.

Greg said it he had played well and was pleased with his serve but that Ebelthite had played well. He said Ebelthite had a very flat game and used a lot of slice which made him very difficult to play on grass.
Ebelthite has progressed to the finals with a straight sets win over last year's title holder Bryden Klein.

Greg goes to Berri, not far from Mildura, just over the border in South Australia for another Futures tournament, also on grass, next week.