Division 2 Roundup - Week 4

Published 08/10/2022 at 15:53:17 by Martin Johnson; edited 2 times, last on 09/10/2022 at 11:00:50 by Martin Johnson.

Princes on the Rise

Greenleys Princes were the big movers in Division 2, in Week 4 of the season.  With the top two teams dropping points, Princes won 8-2 against Milton Keynes Blades, their third win out of three in the Division, to add to their run of seven wins at the end of last season in Division 3.  This means they move into third spot, but with a match in hand on the top two, whilst Blades' tricky start to the season continued, with a fourth straight loss.  Tom Davey and Saravana Kumar maintained their individual 100% records for Princes, also winning the doubles together against Yi Toong Yee and Keshav Navalkissor.  However, Keshav, who was playing up as a reserve (and is 100% in Division 4) almost caused an upset in his opening set against unbeaten Saravana, pushing him to 11-9 in the decider, however, he went one better as he won against William Egbuna later in the evening.  William added the final win for Princes, beating Yi Toong, but also lost out to Mark Thomas.

Chackmore Hasbeens surrendered their 100% match record, but remain unbeaten, and top of the table, as they were held to a 5-5 draw by Leighton Buzzard Spitfires.  Filip Simek was the star for Spitfires, hitting a treble, including a first defeat of the season for Bub Burman, but Filip and Graham Silversides lost out to the pairing of Bub and Andy Whitehead in the doubles, as the Chackmore pair continued their 100% doubles success rate.  Bub and Andy each won a brace of singles, whilst Chris Whitehead was unlucky to twice lose out in a deciding leg, to both Graham and Filip, as well as to Spitfires' third player, Andy Fiske.

Second placed Newport Pagnell Lagondas suffered thier first defeat of the season, going down 4-6 to Little Horwood Wooden Tops, for whom Paul Reynolds won his three singles and Andy Hooper won twice, whilst they also teamed up to take the doubles against Glen Davison and Chris Horn.  For Lagondas, Chris won two in his first outing of the season, to which Sue Lewis and Glen each added one, as they defeated John Cripps.  Wooden Tops thus moved up a place, into sixth spot, and with a game in hand.

The final match saw fourth placed Mursley Hawks visit eighth placed Open University Shockwave.  Hawks moved 3-0 up early on, and looked in control of the doubles at 2-0 up in legs, but a valiant fightback by Shockwave's Charles Tien and Charity Wong against Mick O'Mahoney and Ian Spanswick saw them take the next three tight games, and sparked a further comeback as they took the next two singles to make it 3-3, and it remained close for the rest of the evening, finishing 5-5.  In a match where no-one won all their sets, Charity and Charles each won two singles for Shockwave, to counter two singles wins each by Mick and Martin Johnson, with the final singles going to Ian, in a deciding game against Yifan Liu.  In the opening set, Martin had finally ended a run of eight consectutive losses in a fifth game by Hawks, as he just edged it 11-9 against an unlucky Charles.

Next week's fixtures see the two unbeaten teams, Hasbeens and Princes play each other, whilst the two teams without a win, Shockwave and Blades, also play each other, so will something have to give?  That leaves two mid-table clashes, with Wooden Tops taking on Hawks, and Lagondas playing Spitfires.

Player of the Week : Filip Simek.