MONDAY NIGHT SUMMER LEAGUE WEEK 3 ROUND-UP

Published 11/06/2019 at 16:02:22 by David Wackrill.

DIV 1

Scores –
Howsmall 5  Towcester 0
Spinners 4  Phoenix 1
Warriors 4  Aylesbury 1

Phoenix’ Sarah Hudson, standing in for Gerald Ridgway, may have whipped all the menfolk to be crowned Luton champion the day before (many congratulations Sarah) but found Spinners’ Pete Tillotson a step too far in her opening encounter here, going down over 6 close games. A great scalp for big Pete’s first win of the Summer to make it a 4-1 score-line as Pete later lost to Ioan Constantin. Usual brace for Alan Cherry plus the doubles for Spinners.

But Sarah was not the only current League Closed winner on view as MK champion Matt Haynes made a Summer League debut for Warriors, taking his singles easily against Aylesbury but struggling in the doubles alongside Ricky Taiwo to a deciding game triumph. Aylesbury’s Tim Cheek struck the consolation win in a masterful display against Ricky, who was too good for Ben Rolfe in his other set.

No-one’s been able to take a set off champions Howsmall yet although that may change soon. Not tonight though as Nick Howard and Guy Sparrow pretty much had things all their own way against Towcester’s Iain Lindsay and Ian Brown.

Player of the week is Pete Tillotson.

Table
Howsmall (15 points)
Warriors (10)
Spinners (9)
Phoenix (4)
Towcester (4)
Aylesbury (3)
 

DIV 2 (courtesy of Mike Ainsworth
SWEET AND SOUR GO CLOSE BUT RUN OUT OF STEAM

Hit n Hope 5 Classics 0
Phoenix II 5 Blades 0
Stormers  5 Tornadoes  0
Topspin 3 Sweet and Sour 2

With three of the results being whitewashes this week it was left to winless Sweet and Sour to be involved in the most interesting tie of the week. Unfortunately the Julie Snowdon / Terry Lau partnership went close again but despite the best efforts of Julie with singles wins against Russell Penn and Mervyn Kelly the team slumped to a third successive defeat, this time against second placed Topspin, duplicating last week’s 2-3 result.

On table three it was youth against experience as 14 year olds Tanmay Tijare and Nicholas Wong took on the wily Dave Wackrill and so-far unbeaten Andy Smith. Before the match Andy complained about not yet being the recipient of a player of the week award, despite winning 4/4 after two matches. Well I have bad news Andy, despite now being the only player on 6/6 you still haven’t got the award! On the table it didn’t all go the way of Stormers as Tornadoes’ Tanmay gave Dave a scare with some fine play before succumbing in the deciding seventh end. On the other hand Nicholas was the unfortunate recipient of a bagel in the first against Andy, a score made worse by the nonchalant slap against a loose ball for Andy to win the last point.

Brian Evans was excited to see the league table in the Centre reception that showed Blades in fourth place with 6 points after what he assumed must have been a 4-1 win against Hit n Hope last week. Unfortunately it transpired that Alan Cherry had accidentally reversed the scores and so Blades were actually bottom with 3 points, a position that they remain in after this week’s 5-0 loss to top of the table Phoenix II. Bill Tyler must have been less than happy to see two opponents with long pimples! For Phoenix II there were largely untroubled doubles for Valentin Cazacu and Mervyn Phillips.

Finally a match that was a lot closer than the 5-0 score suggests as Hit n Hope overcame fellow division 2 team Classics. Tony Coomber earned a fine double and Marco his second double in two matches for the winners whilst regular Barbara Peters and reserve Mo Duncan completed the Classics’ line-up.

Player of the week: Julie Snowdon.
 
Week 3 Table:
Phoenix II 13
Stormers 11
Topspin 10  
Hit n Hope 10 
Tornadoes 5 
Sweet and Sour 5 
Classics 3
Blades 3