PREMIER/DIV 1 ROUND-UP WEEK 11
Published 28/11/2019 at 18:53:05 by David Wackrill.
PREMIER DIVISION
SPECIAL DELIVERY FOR SPINNER GARY
In a week that sees the third meeting of the season between teams, top dogs Greenleys Kings faced MK Powers having previously twice won 8-2. Scant returns, some say, for ambitious Kings against the third placed team from Division 1 last year. But this time round Kings got the big win they craved in dispatching Powers 10-0 to open up a 2 point gap. It was their first whitewash of the season as regulars Nick Howard and Guy Sparrow were joined by new boy Carl Leeson, returning to the sport after a 5 year break. The Powers trio of Pete Tillotson, Clare Styles and Colin Munford battled hard but only had a single game win from Clare to show for their efforts.
Chasers Greenleys Monarchs went with an unchanged side this week and scored an 8-2 victory over stable-mates Warriors. Martin Hall extended his impressive recent run of wins to 11 with a close call 12-10 in the 5th victory over Ollie Horswell, but it came to an end in another 5 gamer with MK’s hero from Sunday’s Inter-League matches, Ricky Taiwo. A maximum again for Dave Tiplady and a pair for Ian Johnston, plus the doubles, completed the Monarchs scoring. Ollie got the other Warriors win while Cazacu Valentin completing their line-up. The next two weeks will tell whether Monarchs are serious about a title challenge, as they are due to play Kings twice over.
A 2-man MK Spinners side made short work of my MK Topspin outfit, taking all 7 sets played with just one moment of danger, when I led Neil Massa by 2 games to nil and 5-1 in the 3rd game. Tim Cheek was untouchable. Spinners’ Gary Jones missed his first match of the season, having other priorities with his first born child, a boy, delivered shortly before kick-off. That leaves just Ricky, me and Dave Allison as the only ‘ever-presents’ in the Premier this season - and it’s still only November!! Up and coming Dylan Cox played up from Div 2 alongside Topspin regular Mervyn Kelly.
MK Kingpins beat MK Phoenix 7-3 thanks to a hat-trick from Dave Allison supported by a brace each from Mark Purcell and Peter Bannister. Phoenix put up a spirited performance in the match, level pegging with their higher placed opponents after 6 sets before their challenge collapsed. Ioan Constantin was outstanding for Phoenix with an opening set win over Peter followed up by another at Mark’s expense. In between. he was joined by Mervyn Phillips, a new combination, for a good doubles win over Dave/Peter. But the more consistent Dave was a step too far for him. Terry Lau was the other Phoenix player.
Player of the week is Ioan Constantin.
DIVISION 1
EAGLE PAIR SWOOP ON TAME PUMAS
Greenleys Eagles only needed 2 players this week to beat leaders MK Pumas 6-4 and reduce the deficit at the top between the teams to 6 points. Joe Lindsay took out Andy Smith in the opening set, to end Pumas’ key man’s run of 18 wins while extending his own current run to the same figure, and it was downhill for them thereafter. Pumas only set won on the table was Julie Snowdon’s 4-gamer against Geoff Callaway. Chris Belton remained winless.
3rd placed St. Christopher Van Hire are level on points with Eagles following a 7-3 win over Open University Primes. After a Biao Wang led Van Hire side had dominated the early proceedings, the Primes hit back with 2 straight game wins from Patrick Wong over Jez Wilcox and Paul Haigh, followed by a 11-9 in the 5th game victory for Martin Lok victory over Jez. James Zeng made up the numbers for Primes.
Woburn Sands Data came away with a 7-3 win from their trip to Chackmore Hasbeens. James Molloy and Darren Ward both enjoyed hat-tricks with Data’s other win coming from the bat of Rob McPheat. Bub Burman and Andy Whitehead got a win each for Hasbeens and combined for their 8th doubles win of the season, the most in the Division and an incredible total for a pairing in a team lying in 6th place. Credit is due to Andy Whitehead for supporting big hitting Bub so well and, looking at the stats, Andy is the only player this season to extend Eagles’ ace Joe Lindsay to a deciding game. Chris Whitehead was the other Hasbeens man.
In the final match, bottom of the table Newport Pagnell Vantage went down 6-4 at Greenleys Glory. The usual Vantage trio of Michael Howard, Tony Ardis and Sue Lewis were able to fully capitalise on Glory fielding Div 3’s Richard Weston, with Sue adding their 4th win over Jacob Midson. Ian Brown hit a maximum for 5th placed Glory, with the match result in the balance until the final set. I mentioned doubles play in the last paragraph and, of course, Vantage are no slouches in that department either, with more wins than Pumas so far. In fact, the bottom 4 teams have exactly the same number of doubles wins (22 each) as the top 4 teams at this stage.
Player of the week is Joe Lindsay.