PREMIER/DIV 1 ROUND-UP WEEK 6
Published 04/11/2017 at 13:50:09 by David Wackrill.
PREMIER
MK Sasaki faced MK Spinners, who had Julie Snowdon filling in for them this time alongside regulars Alan Chery and Tim Cheek. The score reached 4-4 with two tough looking sets ahead for Sasaki but the League leaders rose to the occasion and won them both over 5 games. First, the always impressive Dan Smalley completed his maximum at Alan’s expense. Then Matt Horrocks sealed the victory by beating Julie for his only win of the night. A brace from Dakshin Subramarian completed the Sasaki scoring.
A game of two halves for MK Kingpins this week, recovering from 2-4 down to Greenleys Monarchs to snatch a victory against the champions. Mark Purcell, always the man for a crisis, kept his cool for a final set win over Martin Hall despite losing his other singles to Tom Nowakowski and Nigel Metcalfe. A good match for Tom though, who also beat Dave Allison for a fine double to haul his average up to 50%. He may be acclimatised to this standard now after being used to reeling off easy wins in the Bedford League.
It’s been a week of tight matches all-round with MK Bandits getting in on the act at Grenleys Kings when forcing a draw from 3-5 behind. Winless Scott Dixon played in his own Division 2 match as well as for Kings so it was up to the regulars to do the business and they did not disappoint. Nick Howard recorded a treble with victories over Jamie Hendy, so often a bugbear to him, James Tapp and Michael Wilkins. And Guy Sparrow got a couple, falling only to Jamie Hendy over 5 games in a crucial late set. So at least something for Kings to celebrate at last as they avoided defeat for the first time.
Player of the week is Nick Howard.
DIVISION 1
OU Primes got off to a flyer, just as they did against Topspin recently, when they faced MK Phoenix. But after winning the opening sets through Xiangyu Gau and Martin Lok they fell away badly to lose 8-2. Terry Lau picked up a rare hat-trick with 2-a-piece coming from the bats of Carl Furness and Gerald Ridgway.
DIVISION 1
The two teams with the worst doubles records (1 win between them) met this week. Nothing unusual there, as they had to meet sometime, except that these were the League leaders and not sides down the bottom. The match ended in a hard fought draw, enabling Greenleys Warriors to maintain their 6 point advantage over my MK Topspin team. But at least our doubles success brought a halt to Warriors run of victories. Star of the night was Romuald Bacherel, playing up from Div 2, with a sparkling hat-trick and whose big forehand shots proved unstoppable. Jacob Midson also played up from Div 2 and scored a crucial win over Mervyn Kelly, while Russell Penn played his best of the season for Topspin to earn a good brace.
St.Christpher Van Hire took full advantage of Topspin’s lapse to move into 2nd place with a 7-3 win over Greenleys Eagles. Now St.Christopher are a team who know how to play doubles as they remain unbeaten in the format. Fabrice Spelta stepped up the plate for them with a treble, while Paul Haigh had to settle for a brace this time, losing out to Barry Bishop.
OU Primes got off to a flyer, just as they did against Topspin recently, when they faced MK Phoenix. But after winning the opening sets through Xiangyu Gau and Martin Lok they fell away badly to lose 8-2. Terry Lau picked up a rare hat-trick with 2-a-piece coming from the bats of Carl Furness and Gerald Ridgway.
Jiten Pitamber became the 7th player to be selected from MK Powers huge squad when the faced MK Pumas this week, only Greenleys Monarchs in recent years have operated with a bigger one. Jit won well enough against Keith Carrington and Chris Belton before being ensnarled in Andy Smith’s defensive web, as the wily veteran reeled off another maximum in Pumas 7-3 victory. A decent brace here for Keith Carrington whilst Powers’ Colin Munford secured his 3rd win of the season at Chris Belton’s expense, and this after a run of 50 odd consecutive defeats. It looks as though Colin’s high risk strategy of all out attack is paying dividends at last.
Now that Woburn Sands Data have belatedly got their season underway they are unbeaten in 3 matches after a 9-1 win over Chackmore Hasbeens. The consolation win came from Bub Burman over Rob McPheat, leaving James Molloy and David McGarragh to go home with hat-tricks.
Player of the week is Romuald Bacherel.