PREMIER & DIV 1 ROUND UP WEEK 9
Published 17/12/2021 at 16:20:42 by David Wackrill.
PREMIER
DEBUT WIN FOR VAN HIRE
At last a Premier win for the Leighton Buzzard Van Hire side in their debut season in the top flight. Van Hire looked as always to their main man Biao Wang to deliver the goods, which he certainly did in this 6-4 victory over fellow strugglers Greenleys Kings. Biao was, of course, the last person to beat the redoubtable Alan Cherry when giving early notice of his magnificent form this season and, in fact, has won more than twice the number of sets than the rest of his team combined. Good backing this time round though from Paul Haigh with a fine brace himself, doubling his own quota of wins for the season. Paul’s victims were Guy Sparrow and Steve Silk, with Nick Howard proving to be to formidable an opponent to conquer. And a close doubles set to savour as the Kings fought off 4 consecutive match points in the 4th game to the Biao/Paul combo before finally succumbing in the 5th game of what proved to be a vital set. Van Hire gave a debut here to new club member Paul Savins, back playing again after a 13 year lay-off. No doubt he will settle in well and what a historical match in which to make your own debut!
Another good result for leaders MK Spinners, 8-2 this time, over Greenleys Warriors with only ace defender Ricky Taiwo offering substantial resistance with wins over Tim Cheek and Jecu Aurelian. No problems for Alan Cherry as he extended his current winning streak to 15. Another close doubles set to report with the Spinners just squeezing home 13-11 in the decider against Ricky and Darren Ward. Saravana Kumar played up from Division 3 to complete the Warriors team.
Title chasers Greenleys Monarchs matched Spinners effort themselves against MK Sasaki, so no change in the gap between the top teams. Tom Nowakowski and Dave Tiplady were in great form here, snapping up 7 sets between them including the doubles. Martin Hall was the remaining Monarch with just the one win over Michael Wilkins to complete their scoreline. Sasaki regulars William Kit Liang and Nicolas Wong both beat Martin with Nicolas close to adding another, just missing out 11-9 in the 5th to Dave.
Player of the week : Tom Nowakowski
DIVISION 1
EARLY CHRISTMAS TREAT FOR CHACKMORE AS BOTTOM BEATS TOP
This has been a big week for the little teams in this Division.
Bottom side Chackmore Hasbeens turned over a 2-man MK Powers team 6-4 with Bub Burman and Andy Whitehead both beating Keith Carrington and then combining for their customary doubles win. Jit Pitamber won his 3 singles for Powers and Sam Willett was the other Hasbeen. This sensational result was Hasbeen’s first win though the Chackmore team are still holding up the League and Powers are only a point behind new leaders MK Phoenix.
Phoenix themselves were busy despatching club-mates Hit ‘n’ Hope 8-2, Mervyn Phillips stretching his unbeaten run this season to 12. Andy Frearson beat Terry Lau and Paul Tompkins beat Gerald Ridgway for Hit ‘n’ Hope’s consolation wins, although Paul did also take Terry to 12-10 in the 5th before losing. Mike Ainsworth was the other Hit ‘n’ Hoper.
And the shocks kept coming with 6th placed Greenleys Glory leaping up to 3rd with a 9-1 win over a 2-man MK Topspin team, their heaviest ever defeat outside the Premier. Jacob Midson and Scott Dixon walked away with maximums while Christine Scaysbrook ensured a rare blank for Russell Penn, leaving Mervyn Kelly the sole Topspin winner when beating Christine himself.
To round things off, a more conventional result was fought out between Open University Primes and Leighton Buzzard Avengers, the mid table teams level on points both before and after this encounter. Avenger’s Leigh Hurkett was the man of the match here with a hat-trick against James Zeng, Charity Wong and Andy Tan. Andy’s 11 set winning run was brought to an end here by Christinel Hulpan at 11-8 in their deciding game, Christinel’s only success on the night. Avengers other win came from the bat of Richard Hardy at the James’ expense. Charity had a good night for Primes, opening their scoring with a win over Richard and closing out the match for the draw by defeating Christinel.
Player of the week : Leigh Hurkett