SUMMER LEAGUE MONDAY NIGHT WEEK 12 ROUND-UP

Published 08/08/2018 at 08:49:08 by David Wackrill.

DIV 1

Results: HowSmall 5 Stormers 0, Spinners 4 Ijebu Warriors 1, Topspin 3 Towcester 2

Table: 1^st HowSmall (44 pts) 2^nd Spinners (40) 3^rd Ijebu Warriors (34) 4^th Topspin (36) 5^th Stormers (20) 6^th Towcester (16)

Guy Sparrow brought his average back up to a respectable 66% with a brace after some dodgy defeats in the past few weeks as HowSmall thrashed Stormers 5-0 to increase their lead at the top. Nonchalant Nick Howard won his sets with plenty to spare and in the doubles they made it 10 wins from 10 together, still a perfect record. Andy Smith and myself laboured in vain for Stormers.

Spinners dropped a set to Warriors when Ricky Taiwo reversed his defeat earlier in the Summer to Pete Tillotson. Alan Cherry won 2 for Spinners as Jiten Pitamber continued his substitute roll for Warriors.

The only close match was Topspin’s 3-2 victory over Towcester which went to the 7^th game of the doubles with the match score at 2-2. Mal Hussain won the day for Topspin, finishing the match with his trademark forehand smash. Mal had earlier beaten both Iain Lindsay and Ian Brown, who were both too good for Merlyn Kelly.

Player of the week is Mal Hussain.

DIV 2 (courtesy of Mike Ainsworth)

Phoenix 4 Swifts 1
Blades 1 Hit n Hope 4
Sweet n Sour 3 Classics 2

There were four competitive matches this week in Milton Keynes Summer League Division two and the first match of the evening to finish was the closest with Sweet and Sour edging out Classics with a 3-2 score line. However this was something of a comeback for Sweet and Sour after Masoud Nassor had followed his straight games demolition of Gerald Ridgway last week with a 4-2 win against Julie Snowdon whilst Nick Markham had hit his way through Terry Lau by 4 games to 0 in the first two sets.

In the end a shock result was avoided as first Terry Lau tamed the Masoud attack, winning with a 4-2 scoreline, and then Julie overcame Nick. Finally in the doubles the second placed team managed to assert their position and they were doubtless relieved with a 3-2 win.

Sweet and Sour’s rivals at the top of the table might have been excused for expecting another easy win after their comfortable 5-0 victory in the corresponding fixture in week two. Unfortunately Sue Lewis hadn’t read the script, winning a titanic struggle against Gerald Ridgway by the narrowest margin in the deciding game. This after leading 3-0 at one stage and then seeing Gerald come back to 3-3 and then 6-1 up in the decider. Sue then followed this by taking a game off the unbeaten Constantin Ioan before going down fighting, making Constantin work hard for his win.Phoenix took the match 4-1 (Mo Duncan was Swifts’ other player) in the final match to finish off the evening for Phoenix.

Hit n Hope called up Andy Frearson against his former team mates in the Blades team and he held up his end with a fine win against Brian Evans and a narrow defeat against Mark Thomas in a terrific struggle. Ivor Howard was untroubled in his two wins and Hit n Hope took the doubles in a 4-1 win against the bottom team.

Player of the evening: Masoud Nassor

Week 12 Table

Phoenix                 50
Sweet and Sour 48
Hit 'n Hope         26
Classics              22
Swifts                19
Blades                15