Australia in the Spring 2016 - Canberra #1

Centre Court at Canberra

In Canberra for the next Challenger tournament, Greg was on the receiving end of some misfortune. Second alternative for the main draw, and with no "special exemptions (SE) players entered in the qualifying of this or other tournaments, it looked like Greg would be in the Main Draw for Canberra. Then fate stepped in - due to the death of the King of Thailand, the Thailand Challenger was cancelled due to that states mourning period, and a special case was invoked. Players that had entered in the Thai tournament, due to be played this week, who made the semis in the previous week (which is the normal case for a SE) could elect to play in any another tournament that week. And Chung was such a player, who elected to play in Canberra, taking the place of the second alternative, which was Greg. Such bad luck, and not sure why one players misfortune (Chung in this case with the Thai tournament being cancelled) should impact down the line to be the bad luck of some other player, unaffected by the original cause. Go figure...

Jimmy Morogiannis

In any event it meant that Greg missed out on the Main Draw place and was now required to play in qualifying. His first round opponent was local  17 year old Dimitri (Jimmy) Morogiannis, as yet unranked in the ATP.

Greg serving

Greg started the match confidently, and with him playing well off the ground, but with a low first serve percentage, and a nervous Morogiannis missing his shots, Greg's pace was the telling factor and he held serve easily and broke Morogiannis three times to easily win the first set 6-0.
In the second game of the second set Greg serving first and 1-0 up, had the opportunity to put Morogiannis away with multiple break points, but Morogiannis hit a few scorchers to firstly get back to deuce, then save a few more break points, to win the game and get back into the set and the match at 1-1. Both players then held to love,  Morogiannis was fired up and going for his shots, playing at end range, and making them. But slowly the Greg turned the play back his way and he comfortably held his service games to get to 4-3 up. Greg then brought up another break point opportunity, and converted to serve for the match at 5-3. With Morogiannis now swinging at everything with nothing to lose he managed to save match point and peg Greg back to deuce, and then broke Greg to get back on serve.
Greg was nonplussed, getting Morogiannis back from 40-30 to deuce, then bringing up his second match point. A pressurised double fault from Morogiannis gave Greg the match, 6-0, 6-4. 
It was a longer second set than Greg had thought would be the case, after the bagel first set, but the result was never in doubt, Greg taking back to the court afterwards for some more hitting to redress errors made on the second set.