PREMIER / DIV 1 ROUND-UP WEEK 16

Published 26/02/2022 at 17:42:53 by David Wackrill.

 
PREMIER
SPINNERS SUFFER RARE DEFEAT IN TITLE RACE


A first defeat of the season for leaders MK Spinners at the hands of mid table Greenleys Warriors, who fielded Mifzal Ahmed (Zal Latheef) for the first time. Mifzal won twice to back up skipper Ricky Taiwo, who seems unstoppable these days, with yet another maximum.  Warriors other set came from Darren Ward,with a fine win himself over Gary Jones.  Alan Cherry notched up a brace for Spinners and Jecu Aurelian one with Spinners also taking an unplayed doubles set.  Despite this win, Warriors move down the table as their closest rivals picked up more points this week.

2nd placed Greenleys Monarchs don’t normally ‘do' draws, but they were held to one this time round as they shared the spoils for the first time in over 2 years, by MK Sasaki.  The tightness of the contest was illustrated by the fact that neither side were more than a single point ahead throughout.  Star of the show was Tomek Nowakowski with a fine hat-trick against Michael Wilkins, William Kit Liang and Nicolas Wong. Tomek got off to a slow start when losing his opening two games against Michael but,once he moved into top gear, the big hitter reeled off 9 of his remaining 10 games of the night.  William had one of his better matches for Sasaki and came to the table for the final set unbeaten, but Tomek was waiting for him and was not to be denied. Martin Hall picked up the other Monarch sets as team-mate Dave Beddall remained winless.

While the top two, who meet next week, are unlikely to be overtaken at this late stage, the race for 3rd spot remains intruiging with Greenleys Kings’ skipper Nick Howard declaring his side as contenders after their 8-2 win over a 2-man Leighton Buzzard Van Hire team.  Paul Haigh was in great form for the Van men when beating Jordan Moss and Guy Sparrow, but found that toppling Nick was one win too far for him.  This was Kings’ 5th win in 6 and leaves them trailing Sasaki by just 5 points after overtaking Warriors.  Should be a fascinating battle between these three equally strong teams . Fabrice Spelta was the other Van man here.

Player of the week : Ricky Taiwo


DIVISION 1
MIDSON MAGIC TOPLES TOPSPIN 


Leaders MK Phoenix fielded an unchanged team for the match with club-mates Hit ‘n’ Hope and the result was remarkedly similar to their outing last week,  Terry Lau struggled while Mervyn Phillips and Alan Bolding found the going rather easier. Hat-tricks for Mervyn and Alan and a blank for Terry in Phoenix’ 7-3 win. Paul Tompkins, Mike Ainsworth and Andy Frearson played for the Hopers with Andy doubling his win tally for the season in his 8th match. His only other win was also against Terry.

A bitter blow for chasers MK Topspin, who went down 6-4 to Greenleys Glory. The Glory boys, and particularly Jacob Midson (with 8 wins out of 9) have been a thorn in Topspin’s side all campaign with 2 wins and a draw against the aspiring champions. He showed his class again here in a finely balanced match which turned Glory's way with consecutive 12-10 in the 5th game wins for Jacob over Tanmay Tijare, and then Scott Dixon over Russell Penn.  Jacob got his usual hat-trick, Scott won two and Jacob/Christine Scaysbrook took the doubles.  Although winless in singles, Christine had her moments when taking both Tanmay and Russell to a deciding game.

Open University Primes good run of form (unbeaten in 4) came to an end at the Forster Institute when losing 6-4 to lowly Leighton Buzzard Avengers. Alex Du Noyer (3) and Bernie Raffe (2) won all the sets between them, including the crucial doubles, while Richard Hardy remained winless. For Primes, Patrick Wong hit a brace and Charity Wong and James Zeng one each.

MK Powers kept on the winning track after last week’s success against Avengers.  This time they had an easier triumph over a 2-man Chackmore Hasbeens.  Powers ran out 8-2 winners after the Hasbeens got off to a flying start when Chris Whitehead beat Sarah Hudson and Andy Whitehead beat Keith Carrington.  But the bottom placed side could not keep it up and Powers snatched the rest.  No problems either for regular super-sub Derick Rodrigues, playing up from Division 2.

Player of the week : Jacob Midson