Premier division round- up - Week 5. All change at the top.
Before their match this week, MK Sasaki were a point behind Greenleys Warriors, but the gap widened significantly after the Warriors secured a 9-1 away win. This was the 4thmatch in a row in which Sasaki had played a Greenleys team. Ameya Phatek and Darren Ward each scored a maximum for the Warriors against Tarn Gascoyne and Michael Wilkins, with the home team’s only success coming from Minesh Pitamber against Adebola Odetoyo. The match score doesn’t tell the story of the evening, as 4 of the sets went to a final game and a third of the 40 games played were decided 11-9 or 14-12. Sasaki, who have a game in hand, drop a place to 6th, while Warriors stay in 4th but are much closer to the team above them.
Greenleys Monarchs remain in 4th place after a 10-0 home win against promoted OU Primes, the third consecutive such loss for the visitors. It was a largely straightforward evening for the Monarchs’ team of Ed Simms, Martin Hall and David Tiplady against Patrick Wong, James Zeng and Andy Tan, with Ed being the only player to concede a game, against both Patrick and James. Andy and James nearly managed a win in the doubles, but ended up losing the final game 11-13.
Greenleys Vanguards played bottom team Leighton Buzzard Generations. Christopher Darby scored a fine treble, beating Graham Cook and Fabrice Spelta 3-0 and, in the evening’s final set, Ian Musk in 4 games to secure a match win 6-4. Earlier Elroy Edwards lost his first set to Ian, in 4 games, before beating Graham and Fabrice. The Vanguards were a player short and Yevhenil Bohrieiev, from Greenleys Crusaders in Division 1, played two matches on the night and was rewarded with a 3-0 win against Graham. Ian and Graham won the doubles against Christopher and Elroy. Their 4 points move Generations from 9th to 7th, ahead of Greenleys Glory who were this week’s team without a match.
The final match of the week was a top of the table clash between Yardley Titans and MK Spinners, who had only 2 players following a late withdrawal through illness of Jecu Aurelian. Adrian Piotrowski and Nick Howard of the Titans beat both Alan Cherry and Gareth Jones, while Craig Brown beat Gareth but lost to Alan in 5 games. In the opening set of the night, Alan had pushed Nick all the way, losing 7-11 in the final game. The result means that the Titans leapfrog the Spinners to the top of the division and still have a game in hand.
Team of the week: Greenleys Warriors
Player of the week: Christopher Darby