PREMIER / DIV 1 ROUND-UP WEEK 9
Published 20/11/2023 at 14:15:42 by David Wackrill.
PREMIER CRAIG CRASHES TO FIRST DEFEAT
Match of the week, maybe the season so far, goes to Friday’s contest at Wing where the home boys of Leighton Buzzard Generations put up a terrific fight-back against champions elect MK Titans after going 5-0 down at the break. Generations’ Hakan Karaagac gave an early indication of his form when taking Guy Sparrow to a decider early doors before seeing off Titan skipper Nick Howard over 4 games as a prelude to the prized scalp of Titan-in-chief Craig Brown in 5 to end Craig’s impressive unbeaten run for the season at 23. Leaders Titans can still boast a 100% team record however with a strong all-round performance as Nick and Guy Sparrow joining Craig on 2 wins a-piece and took the doubles to secure a 7-3 success. Ben took the other Generations set when beating Guy and might have had another when leading Nick 2 games to 1 and missing out on deuce in the 4th and 5th games of the final set of the night. A great way, though, to end a terrific match.
2nd placed MK Spinners beat Greenleys Monarchs 8-2. Alex Meade started well in his Monarchs debut with a win over Gary Jones before falling to the defensive wiles of Alan Cherry and Jecu Aurelian on a good night for Spinners. Alan and Jecu remained unbeaten with Gary also dropping the other lost set, this time to Tomek Nowakowski. Zero for Martin Hall here.
The 2 bottom clubs met in this week’s MK club derby resulting in an emphatic triumph for Sasaki against Phoenix. No fewer than 6 sets went to a 5th game though, with Sasaki taking 5 of them. The exception was a Michael Wilkins loss to Alan Bolding, who also scored the other Phoenix point with a win over Noah Levens. Minesh Pitamber took a fine hat-trick whilst Gerald Ridgway and Mevyn Phillips remained winless for Phoenix.
Only 3 matches this week as the Greenleys derby between Glory and Warriors failed to take place. Once again, the Warriors didn’t turn up for a fixture, indicating a misunderstanding of the correct date. The Warriors team captaincy has now changed hands from Ricky Taiwo to Darren Ward. Hopefully the fixture will be re-arranged for sometime in the new year.
Player of the week: Hakan Karaagac
DIVISION 1
PIECE OF CAKE FOR TOPSPIN BIRTHDAY BOY
Two matches for OU Primes this week to catch up on their own backlog. On Monday they beat Chackmore Hasbeens 7-3 with hat-tricks from Patrick Wong and Andy Tan plus a single from James Zeng. Statutory doubles win to Chackmore though (when will they ever lose?) plus singles wins from Bub Burman and Sam Willett. Zero for Andy Whitehead. Then on Thursday Primes hosted Leighton Buzzard Avengers and won 6-4 despite the best efforts of Alex Du Noyer, who scored a maximum and shared the doubles win with Steve Jordan. Richard Hardy was the third Avenger while Patrick Wong, James Zeng and Ning He got a brace a-piece for now 2nd placed Primes. No close sets here either.
Leaders MK Topspin faced a tough assignment against a full strength MK Sharks outfit, coming through 6-4 with a masterclass from Jit Pitamber and on his 43rd birthday too. What a way to celebrate! Just like Avenger Alex he pulled off a hat-trick of wins plus a share of the doubles (with Mervyn Kelly). Mervyn and myself got one single each at Rupert Greyling’s expense. Sarah Hudson and Derick Rodrigues (2 win each) were the other Sharks in fine action.
To complete the pattern of the week - 6 -4 results with one man dominating - MK Pumas long serving member Andy Smith duly obliged with his own hat-trick plus doubles (with Chris Belton) in his side’s 6-4 win over Greenleys Princes. Chris and Adam Snowdon providing the singles wins to complete the score-line. Saravana Kumar and William Egbuna got two each for Princes while Gary Viner was their other man. The Princes were bottom of the Division when the match started but rose to 7th by the end of the night.
35 matches so far played and only 3 of them drawn, and those in the first two weeks. The only outstantanding fixture now remaining is from the opening week between the current bottom two, Princes and Leighton Buzzard Van Hire. No match for Van Hire this time as they played their scheduled fixture last week.
Player of the week : Jit Pitamber