PREMIER / DIV 1 ROUND-UP WEEK 17
Published 19/02/2023 at 16:14:26 by David Wackrill.
PREMIER TIPLADY TREBLE IN TOP OF TABLE CLASH
Greenleys Monarchs’ Dave Tiplady hit a memorable hat-trick against MK Spinners in the ‘el clasico’ meeting between the sides locked at the top of the table. But it ended all square as Monarchs retain a 2 point lead over their traditional title rivals. Martin Hall chipped in with one win and shared the doubles success with Dave in a thrilling set where they lost the 4th game 20-18 and won the decider 11-9. In fact, all 4 sets going the distance were taken by Monarchs, whose other representative was Dave Beddall. Alan Cherry and Jecu Aurelian got a brace a-piece for Spinners and Tim Cheek one.
The main beneficiaries of the Monarchs/Spinners draw were Greenleys Kings, as the result keeps their fellow title contenders well within Kings’ compass. They won 9-1 this week against lowly MK Phoenix, but there was another big scalp here for Phoenix’ tricky defender Ioan Constantin with his consolation win over Guy Sparrow. Maximums for Nick Howard and Craig Brown. Zeros for Mervyn Phillips and Gerald Ridgway. Kings now go level on points with Spinners with a match in hand.
Honours even in the battle for 4th place leaves MK Sasaki still 4 points ahead of Greenleys Warriors. Star of the show was Sasaki’s Nicolas Wong with a hat-trick plus the doubles with Michael Wilkins, who provided the other win. For Warriors, Ricky Taiwo and Darren Ward picked up a brace each with one form Shrishlal Basant Rai. William Kit Liang was the other Sasaki player. A closely fought contest throughout.
Finally, over at Wing on Friday, the meeting of the two teams who have used the most players this season (20 in all) saw Leighton Buzzard Van Hire beat MK Topspin 8-2. Javier Goh and Biao Wang hit hat-tricks for Van Hire and Fabrice Spelta took a single win. Topspin’s victories came from Jit Pitamber, playing up from Div 1, and Mervyn Kelly. Jit was a founding member of Topspin in 2015 but hasn’t appeared in the team since that inaugural season. Russell Penn also played.
Player of the week : Dave Tiplady
DIVISION 1
GLORY BOYS CLOSE THE GAP
Despite the welcome return of hat-trick man Andy Smith to the MK Pumas pack, the long term leaders dropped 3 points to bottom placed team-mates Powers while title rivals Greenleys Glory continue to close the gap at the top, now down to 3 points. Skipper Pete Tillotson was in good form for Powers with a terrific brace that included the scalp of Julie Snowdon in an epic battle that went to 16-14 in the 5th. Minesh Pitamber took the 3rd Power point with a win over Chris Belton. Paul Tompkins was the other Power player.
Meanwhile Greenleys Glory were keeping up the pressure on their title rivals by thrashing MK Sharks 10-0. Maximums for Ian Brown, Iain Lindsay and Jacob Midson. Zeros for Derick Rodrigues, Rupert Greyling and Abhay Tijare, although Rupert did take Ian to 12-10 in the 5th in the final set of the evening. They play each other next week. Should be interesting!!
7th placed MK Pioneers earned a fine draw at mid-table Woburn Sands Mosquitoes in a strong team performance with everyone chipping in and the doubles taken for good measure. A brace here for Pioneer Paul Haig, in fine form at present, and single wins by Andy Frearson and Marco Hahn. Hat-trick man James Molloy remained defiant for Mosquitoes with one each from Andy Jenkins and Glen Barcham. No-one leaving a match winless is always nice to see.
Open University Primes are going great guns at the moment and had no difficulty is seeing off higher placed Leighton Buzzard Avengers 7-3 on Thursday. Ning He took a maximum with Patrick Wong a brace and Andy Tan one. The Avengers wins came courtesy of Steve Jordan (2) and Bernie Raffe (1). Rickard Hardy also played for Avengers. At this rate the Primes are looking good for that coveted 3rd place spot currently held by Avengers.
Player of the week : Ning He