PREMIER ROUND-UP WEEK 12
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE AS LEADERS CRASH
Plenty of stats this week (if you like that kind of thing).
Big news in the title race as holders and current leaders MK Titians were beaten 10-0 this week by their main contenders Leighton Buzzard Generations, who put out their best team for the first time this season at Wing on Friday. Hat-tricks all round for Biao Wang, Ian Musk and Ming Fuk Lieu with just the 2 sets going the distance when Nick Howard took Biao and Ian to a deciding game. Craig Brown and Ricky Taiwo played as usual for Titans, whose lead now drops to 17 points. This is the first time since October 2021 that the reigning champions have lost a match by 10-0 - on that occasion it was Greenleys Kings (a previous incarnation of Titans) succumbing to MK Pumas.
Greenleys Monarchs meanwhile have been slipping down the table fast after 4 consecutive defeats - their own worst run of form since the team was formed in 1993. This week's match looked as though it might be going the same way when opponents MK Topspin took an early 2-1 lead in the clash between teams in 6th and 7th place. But that was as far as Topspin got to toppling the one-time League giants as Monarchs rolled out the remaining sets for an 8-2 victory. Congratulations though to Russell Penn for his win over Colin Luscombe and to Jit Pitamber for beating Dave Beddall, both in tough 5 gamers. Martin Hall, however, was in fine form for Monarchs with all straight game victories throughout. Mervyn Kelly was the other Topspinner.
Another team on the slide is one-time leaders Greenleys Warriors, who had only 2 squad members available for the second week running and are now down to 5th. No late sub to join their team this time round though as Adrian Piotrowski and Darren Ward took on the 3rd placed MK Spinners side of Alan Cherry, Jecu Aurelian and Adebola Odetayo. A sparkling hat-trick by Adrian still resulted in a 7-3 win for Spinners. Only 7 sets played, of course, but 5 of those (including the doubles) did manage to go to a deciding game, which is the highest percentage of 5-game sets occurring in any match in the League so far this season at 71.43%.
Surprise package Greenleys Glory, however, move up to 4th place after an 8-2 win over bottom side Open University Primes. Hat-trick here for Jacob Midson and Iain Lindsay with just the one win for Ian Brown, who was beaten on the night by Andy Tan and Ning He. Patrick Wing was the other Prime man.
Player of the week : Biao Wang