PREMIER & DIV 1 ROUND-UP WEEK 4
Published 09/10/2022 at 16:31:00 by David Wackrill.
PREMIER
GREENLEYS CLUB DOMINANT
Well, a clean sweep of victories for Greenleys over club MK this week with unfancied Warriors leading the way against champions Spinners. Ricky Taiwo’s much famed defence proved impregnable once again with a fine hat-trick and a lead roll in the doubles, partnered by Darren Ward. They still needed two more successes to get over the line however and these came from Darren, who beat Gary Jones (11-9 in the 5th) and Tim Cheek. No wins for Warriors’ Saish Prabhu and a brace this time for Spinners’ Alan Cherry.
Meanwhile, a few tables along at the MK clubroom on Wednesday night League leaders Kings were ripping up the Premier record books against my Topspin team by extending their run of unbroken single game (11 up) wins to 46 before Mervyn Kelly put a stop to it by taking a game from Kings’ ace summer signing Craig Brown. Mervyn, carrying on his fine form from last week in taking Craig all the way to 11-6 in the decider. But better things were still to come from Topspin as Mervyn teamed up with Russell Penn to take an unlikely doubles success from Nick Howard and Guy Sparrow, surviving multiple match points to win at deuce in the 5th. I was the other Topspiner, making no impression on proceedings. Kings still have an unbeaten record of 28 consecutive singles wins to boast about after this 9-1 victory, however. When will it end?
Monarchs completed the Greenleys rout with a whitewash over bottom side MK Phoenix despite the visitors fielding their best team for the first time this season, although 4 sets did go the distance. Dave Beddall, Martin Hall and Tomek Nowakowski featured for Monarchs with Ioan Constantin, Mervyn Phillips and Alan Bolding representing Phoenix.
The final match between MK Sasaki and Leighton Buzzard Van Hire ended in a draw. Two wins each for Noah Levens and Michael Wilkins with one from Nicolas Wong for Sasaki. Van Hire’s sets came from Hakan Karaagac, who took a fine hat-trick plus the doubles with Ian Doughty. Ian chipped in with a final set win over Nicolas and Alex Du Noyer, playing up from Div 1, made up the numbers for Van Hire.
Player of the week : Ricky Taiwo
DIVISION 1
MOSQUITOS TAKE A TANNING
While Greenleys teams held the upper hand over club MK sides in the Premier this week, MK Pumas were seeing off the challenge of Greenleys Glory in a top of the table clash with plenty to spare. Hat-tricks for Pumas’ golden girls Lowri Hurd and Julie Snowdon, who also paired up for doubles success, plus one from Chris Belton ensured an 8-2 win. John Stamp and Ian Brown both beat Chris while Scott Dixon was the other player.
That defeat drops Glory to 4th place as Leighton Buzzard Avengers and MK Sharks move up after big wins. Avengers now sit second following the 7-3 defeat of a 2-man MK Powers. Bernie Raffe was untroubled by Pete Tillotson and Keith Carrington and shared the doubles success with Christinal Hulpan, who picked up a singles win over Keith. Anton May was winless for Avengers.
Sharks trail Avengers by 2 points after their 10-0 thrashing of club-mates Pioneers. Maximums for Derick Rodrigues, Rupert Greyling and Abhay Tijare whilst zeros for Terry Lau, Marco Hahn and Andy Frearson. New team Pioneers are struggling at the bottom, every match lost so far and averaging less than 2 points a time.
Finally a close match, with Open University Primes taking away a 6-4 win from Woburn Sands Mosquitos. A fine maximum from Andy Tan stole the show with support at one a-piece from Patrick Wong and James Zeng, plus the doubles set. A brace each from James Molloy and Andy Jenkins completed Mosquitos scoring. No wins for Glenn Barcham here. Early days but both sides should finish comfortably in mid table.
Player of the week : Andy Tan