Goodall gets year off to winning start (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Goodall gets year off to winning start

1:00pm Tuesday 24th January 2012 in Tennis

BASINGSTOKE tennis ace Josh Goodall won his first title of 2012 at a Futures event held on carpet at Schwieberdingen in Germany as he looks to carry on the form he showed towards the end of last year.

The British number four beat top seed German Bastian Knittel, coming back from a set down to win 2-6, 7-6, 6-4.

To reach the final, the Basingstoke-born player saw off home player Dennis Bloemke 6-3, 6-3 in the first round.

He then came from a set down to beat Elie Rousset from Belgium 4-6, 6-0, 6-3.

A straight sets success 6-2, 6-4 against German wild card Sebastian Sachs set up a semi-final with Ireland’s Louk Sorensen.

That match saw a tense tie-break in the first set, which Goodall eventually won 14-12 and then the second also went to a tie-break with the Brit winning it a lot easier this time, 7-3 – and he then went onto win the final.

The Basingstoke-born player also played in the doubles event with fellow Brit Miles Bugby and they reached the final before going down to French duo Albano Olivetti and Rousset 6-4, 6-4.

To get that far the Brits beat Andrei Daescu and Stephan Hoiss 7-6, 6-4 and then won a third set tie-break 10-6 over German Florian Fallert and Jakob Sude after the Brits won the first set 6-3 and lost the second 7-5.

A week earlier, in Goodall’s first event of 2012, he lost a titanic final at the AEGON British Tour event at Billesley Tennis Centre.

The Basingstoke player, currently ranked 283 in the world, went down to fellow Brit Andrew Fitzpatrick in three sets in a match which lasted two hours and 40 minutes.

Goodall won the first set tie-break 7-3 but Fitzpatrick levelled the match thanks to his own 7-3 tie break success in set two.

The final set was equally as tense until Fitzpatrick secured the only break of serve in the whole match at 5-5. He then held serve to claim the match.

Goodall reached the final after winning a tough semi-final against third seed Richard Bloomfield, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.