The Off Season 2014 - #1

After returning from Toyota Greg had a few days off in Melbourne, primarily to try and sort out a niggling problem with his back before heading back to Sydney to play in the Nepean Tie-break Shoot-out in Penrith and the associated AMT Money tournament. Greg was the winner of the inaugural Tiebreak shootout a couple of years ago, which was then a winner take-all $10,000 affair, and was keen to have another go. The only problem for Greg is that the event was played on a synthetic grass surface, generally only found in NSW, which is a very slippery surface compared to the surfaces on which he normally plays.The last time he had played on the surface was in 2011, the previous time he had won the shoot-out, and then his big serve won him the day.
Greg was extremely pleased to see all his old NSW mates like Matt Reid and Matt Barton and a few of the younger players like Jake Eames and Chris O'Connell . Seeded No.5, Greg's first round match was against 20 year-old Sydney player Dimitri Vidin, unranked in the ATP,  a player who had a few wins in qualifying, but against whom Greg would be confident in winning - on a hard court and in a normal set scoring system. But this was a tiebreak format and a lottery as such.

The Nepean Tennis Centre

In the warm-up the big serving Vidim was smacking the skin off the ball, but nervously started with a double-fault and then gifted Greg the tie-break by hardly hitting a first set and double faulting again, Greg winning the first set 7-3 without hardly a rally being played.
Vidim then settled down and got more into the tie-break, hitting a few more first serve bombs and moving Greg around on the slippery, half-patched synthetic surface. Greg was having trouble with his balance and in trying to turn and actually fell over once, gifting Vidim a couple of easy points and conceding the second tiebreak to him. One tiebreak each and now it was really a lottery with a deciding tie-break to be played.
Still uncertain on the surface, and with Vidim teeing off on virtually every point with nothing to lose, Greg fell behind a double break twice, but each time managed to pull back a break. But he could not stop Vidim serving for the match at 6-5, only to see him serve a double-fault, for Greg to level the score. But a few points later Vidim again had break-point, this time breaking Greg to win the tie-break 11-9 and dump Greg out of the tournament before he could even find his feet on what was for him a treacherous surface.
Coupled with the Tiebreak tournament, there was a fast serve competition. Greg stepped up and served four serves all over 200kph, the fastest 207kph, but with much leeway given with the legitimacy of all the serves he did not make the top five final, the quickest serve being over 220kph.
It was well organised fun event put on by the Nepean Tennis Association and enjoyed by all.
Greg was not able to play in the AMT event, pulling out due to his niggling back injury which is restricting his ability to serve and move properly.