PREMIER / DIV 1 ROUND-UP WEEK 12
Published 10/12/2023 at 15:53:50 by David Wackrill.
PREMIER GLORY AND GENERATIONS SPLIT OVER 800 POINTS EVENLY IN EXCITING CLIFFHANGER
Two 10-0s and two 6-4s to report this time round.
There’s no stopping the mighty MK Titans unit, and even if there was I don’t think this week’s opponents, amiable club-mates Phoenix, would have been the team to do it with 11 straight defeats behind them. A whitewash looked to be the likely outcome from the start and so it proved. I filled in for Phoenix, following a late withdrawal by Gerald Ridgway, to join Mervyn Phillips and Alan Bolding and, much as we huffed and puffed in our best endeavours, there was no way past the Titan machine of Craig Brown, Nick Howard and Guy Sparrow.
The other whitewash result came from Greenleys Monarchs in their match against a 2- person MK Sasaki. All one traffic here too for Tomek Nowakowski, Dave Tiplady and Martin Hall against former Powers players Minesh Pitamber and seasonal debutant Clare Styles.
In contrast to these first two matches, the evenness of the Greenleys Glory/Leighton Buzzard Generations clash in well illustrated in the distribution of total points played at exactly 403 each!! Ian Mead hit his usual hat-trick for Glory, skipper Jason Midson bagged a brace and together they took their customary doubles win to secure the 6-4 score-line. Scott Dixon was the other Glory boy. A tough night for Generations’ Hakan Karaagac who lost twice to a team outside the top three for the first time, as only the one win for him here. The Generations star turn was div 1 sub Alex Du Noyer with a magnificent double against Scott and Jacob. Tim Cheek also played. Great match with half the sets going to a decider. More of this kind of stuff please.
Finally, 2nd placed MK Spinners had to call on a sub against Greenleys Warriors themselves, Russell Penn answering the call to arms. But with Warriors’ Ricky Taiwo back to his devastating best it was always hard going for the former champions. Tricky Ricky took a hat-trick with wins over Alan Cherry, Jecu Aurelian and Russell, plus the doubles alongside regular partner Darren Ward. With Darren and Shrishlal Basant Rai winning one a-piece the Warriors victory was assured.
Player of the week : Ricky Taiwo
DIVISION 1
A MATCH TOO FAR FOR SUPER SUB PAUL
Another crazy batch of results in this Division as all the teams in the top half failed to beat any of the four teams in the basement section.
League leaders MK Topspin had to share the spoils with a last placed Leighton Buzzard Van Hire side represented by Andy Fiske, Sophie Storey, and Div 2 sub Graham Silversides. Topspin regulars Russell Penn and Mervyn Kelly were joined by a Div sub themselves, Paul Tompkins, whose presence in the match proved to be a mini-drama in itself as Paul was making his FOURTH ‘playing up’ appearance of the season here (all for four different MK teams too). By League rules, players are only allowed to ‘play up’ 3 times from lower divisions without affecting their own team status. In the event his scores have been scrubbed from the record, which is just as well as he lost all his sets anyway. A massive shame, though, for Sophie as it meant her first ‘win’ being chalked off, and for Graham, who also beat Russell in straight games to temporarily hold an impressive 66% average in this division (since downgraded to a mere 33%) Some consolation for the pair though was a doubles win together to force a decent draw for their side. Maximum for Topspin’s Mervyn K. and zero for Van Hire’s Andy F.
2nd placed Open University Primes lost 6-4 to 6th placed MK Pumas. The Primes started well with James Zeng beating Adam Snowdon and Patrick Wong beating Chris Belton (both in 5 games) but were undone by a hat-trick from Andy Smith, who also took the doubles with Chris Belton. Adam and Chris were able to snatch a win a-piece against Andy and James respectively to get Pumas over the line, although both went down to Patrick Wong.
MK Sharks, in 3rd spot, shared the spoils with 7th placed Greenleys Princes with Sarah Hudson, shaking off the blues from last week’s blip, taking her usual hat-trick plus the doubles with Abhay Tijare. Derick Rodrigues saved the draw for Sharks with a win over Mayuresh Gokhale while Abhay remained winless. A decent brace a-piece for Princes skipper Saravana Kumar and latest recruit Saish Prabhu.
The Friday match at Wing ended with a 6-4 home victory for 5th placed Leighton Buzzard Avengers over Chackmore Hasbeens, lying one spot above them. As this match brought together the two strongest doubles pairs in the Division, it was fitting that the score went to deuce in the 5th game and that the outcome decided the result too. Congratulations Bernie Raffe and Alex Du Noyer, commiserations Bub Burman and Andy Whitehead. Bub was outstanding in the match though with a splendid hat-trick, Hasbeens other point coming from Andy W. Zero though for their Div 6 sub Freddie Burman, losing out Bernie, Alex and Cristi Hulpan.
Player of the week : Bub Burman