Club Champs Order of Play & Highlights Day 5

Dear All,

What a Wednesday! The sun was shining, cheese, crackers and chocolate rubbish were devoured at the bar and the crowds began to swell - with some starting to get quite rowdy too. Safe to say a lot of the matches were tighter than Tuesday and several seeds faced tricky encounters, only coming through in tense tiebreakers.

Here are some of the highlights from Wednesday's action:

Tenth seed Joe Reve had his work cut out on court six as he went down 6-4 in the first set against Dan Maylon . Uncharacteristically, visibly frustrated with himself, Joe came back to win the second set 6-0, and then took the tiebreak 10-7. Joe is fast becoming the tiebreak king of the tournament, coming through in both of his matches the long way. He later claimed it was all part of an effort to attract bigger crowds to his matches.

Tiebreak was the name of the game tonight though, with two of the other 630pm fixtures ending in this cruel manner. In the longest match of the evening, Aruna Iyengar and Sylvia Schubert faced off in a two hour marathon, which ended in an 10-8 victory for Aruna . It was an incredibly close match up, with Sylvia falling 9-4 behind in the tiebreak, only to bring it back to 9-8 with some amazing dropshots. Aruna showed nerves of steel to hold on for the win though.

Doubles pair Ajegbo and Whitehead faced a tricky tiebreak of their own over on court 4, where they struggled to defeat the Persson family duo, eventually losing 10-8 in the third. Ajegbo was fuming as he came off court and was eager to get straight back out there for his singles, which he then took comfortably 6-2, 6-1 against James Ireson .

But, match of the day had to be in the 745pm slot between 11th seed Tom Hladick and Jorge Diez Alvarez . Has anyone ever seen backhands like it? There was more than one audible gasp as Jorge hit numerous single handed winners worthy of Wawrinka. In the end though, Hladick's double handed backhand - also a thing of beauty - came out on top and he took the champ tiebreak 10-3.

Elsewhere there was more of the demolition theme from Tuesday as bagels and breadsticks were handed out all over the club. In general though, the tennis was much tighter than the scorelines suggested and there were numerous ridiculous rallies on display. Charbel Akhras and Nyig Tin put up a heroic battle against number one seeds Dominic Pearson and Tom Fenton in the men's doubles, winning some magnificent points which belied a rather bleak 6-0, 6-0 scoreline.

Youngsters Miles Speer and Lewis Henderson were also in fine form in their singles matches, which they both won only losing one game each. Rob Green , the vanquished opponent of Lewis Henderson claimed afterwards that it was his serve which had let him down. "I blame Hamid ", he said, "he started the job but he never finished it".

Tomorrow's Matches to Watch:

Ferocious forehands will be in action tomorrow as club legend and eighth seed Alyson Fox takes on Sonia Whitehead , in what will surely be an epic encounter in the women's singles. Fourth seed, Jess Bosi, will also be playing, kicking off her debut singles campaign at OC against junior Livia Odgers .

Silvia Schubert will also be back on court, hopefully after an ice bath and a massage given her marathon match today. She plays Caroline Beck in the women's vets.

Men's seventh seed Chris Alstadt will face the wily Bill Meredith , king of slice, in the men's singles, in what could be a tricky encounter for Chris . Meanwhile, Charbel Akrhas , who showed off his gracious groundstrokes in the men's doubles tonight will face the eighth seed Karanvir Anand , who has been described as one of the most frustrating opponents ever by Joe Reeve . "I've never beaten him", said Joe , "I wanted to kill myself after we last played".

Behind the bar, former chairman Nigel will be offering delicious delicacies and ice cold beers. So get down, enjoy some refreshments and support your favourite OCers!

Thursday 19 June: Order of Play

6.30pm

Boys u12: Zach Fernandez vs Tommaso Venturi
MS: Karanvir Anand [8] vs Charbel Akrhas
WS50+: Cecile Monfort vs Anna Leslie
XD: M.Cowie/J.Buswell vs E.Jenner/M/Jenner
XD: H.Odgers/L.Odgers vs N.Stott/G.Kirwan
XD: J.Tyndall/H.Pulford vs M.Viera/M.Tavasoli
XD: A.Sergeant/J.Reeve vs H.Woof/J.Woof

MS: Chris Alstadt [7] vs William Meredith

7.45pm

WS: Sonia Whitehead vs Alyson Fox [8]

MS: Matt Whitehead [2] vs Harry Dalton
MS: Rodrigo Sa Carneiro vs Alex Walker
WS: Jess Bosi [4] vs Livia Odgers
XD: C.Monfort/O.Monfort vs C.Ireson/J.Ireson
WS50+: Silvia Schubert vs Caroline Beck
WS50+: Erin He vs Yuki Langley