SUMMER LEAGUE MONDAY NIGHT WEEK 11 ROUND-UP

Published 31/07/2018 at 09:52:15 by David Wackrill.

DIV 1

Results: HowSmall 4 Ijebu Warriors 1, Spinners 4 Towcester 1, Stormers 3 Toppin 2

Table: 1st HowSmall (39 pts), 2nd Spinners (36), 3rd Ijebu Warriors (33), 4th Topspin (23), 5th Stormers (20) 6th Towcester (14)

We start the 3rd and final cycle of matches by welcoming newly promoted Towcester, the 8th different side to compete in the top Division this Summer. It’s a rarity for the relegated team from the 1st cycle not to return but Sweet n Sour’s chances were rather scuppered by regular team member Kelvin Choong playing against them at week 9.

Towcester opened their campaign against former champions Spinners and Iain Lindsay’s 100% Monday night record went straight away when losing to Alan Cherry. However Iain recovered well to beat Pete Tillotson in a tough 7 game set. Ian Brown completed the Towcester line-up as always and Spinners ran out 4-1 winners.

Leaders HowSmall also won 4-1 to maintain their 3 point advantage over title rivals Spinners. Opponents Warriors gave an outing to Jiten Pitamber as Jordi Amat Foraster missed his first match. Jit played well to win take a few games but it was Ricky Taiwo who stole the show with a terrific 11-8 in the decider victory against Guy Sparrow for Warrior’s sole point. Nick Howard was rock solid as usual for HowSmall.

I showed that it’s not only Sarah Hudson who can win from 3 games down (and with only 13 points won at that stage) when I pipped Topspin’s Russell Penn in the opening set for Stormers. However there was no getting past Mervyn Kelly, who saved his best form of the Summer for this match with some sensational hitting on both wings to take an admiral brace for Topspin’s wins in a 3-2 defeat. He would not be denied though it took him 5 match points to see off a stubborn Andy Smith in the 7th while saving 2 match points himself.

Player of the week is Mervyn Kelly.

DIV 2 (courtesy of Mike Ainsworth)

Hit n Hope 5 Sweet and Sour 5
Classic 1 Phoenix 4
Swifts 4 Blades 1

The Phoenix team of Gerald Ridgway and Constantin Ioan, having narrowly failed to retain their place in the top division, started their quest to be Champions of Division 2 with a match against fourth placed Classics. And all went according to plan for the first four sets as Phoenix stormed to a 4-0 lead with none of the sets going beyond 4-0. However, that’s where the run ended for Phoenix as Gerald lost against Masoud Nassor for only his second defeat of the summer in the second tier and so the match ended 4-1 to Phoenix. Constantin Ioan was untroubled in his two wins and Barbara Peters was the other player for Classics.

Meanwhile second placed Sweet and Sour were strengthened by the presence of the enigmatic Kelvin Choong in their match against third placed Hit n Hope and predictably Kelvin won his two singles comfortably. Julie Snowdon was in great hitting form in her two singles and so Marco Hahn and Mike Ainsworth both failed to trouble the scorer as Hit n Hope went down 0-5.

As a result of the maximum win Sweet and Sour have closed the gap between the top two teams to just one point with four matches to play.

Finally the closest match of the evening as usual didn’t involve the top two teams as bottom placed Blades took on second from bottom Swifts. On the evening it was Swifts who took the honours with a 4-1 win; the only point for Blades coming from a straight games win for Mark Thomas against Mo Duncan. Sue Lewis earned a fourth maximum for the summer and Brian Evans was the second player for Blades.

Player of the evening: Julie Snowdon

Week 11 Table

Phoenix 46

Sweet and Sour 45

Hit 'n Hope 22

Classics 20

Swifts 18

Blades 14