Premier division round- up - Weeks 7 and 8
Week 7
OU Primes secured a 6-4 win at the Kingston TTC against MK Sasaki. In the opening set, Michael Wilkins lost in 5 games to James Zeng, who later lost in 5 games to Minesh Pitamber and in 3 to Mervyn Phillips. Michael beat Andy Tan in 3 for his only win of the night. Minesh needed 5 games to beat James, but lost to Andy in 4. Mervyn performed best for Sasaki, earning his second win of the match against James. The evening’s star however was Nicolas Wong for the visitors, beating all the home players and with joining Andy in the doubles to beat Michael and Mervyn. Sasaki’s second win of the season, following 4 successive 10-0 defeats, moved them above Greenleys Glory by a point.
Greenleys Monarchs, in 3rd place, gave leaders Yardley Titans their hardest match yet but still ended up losing 3-7. David Tiplady took the honours for Monarchs, with 4 –game wins against Ricky Taiwo and Craig Brown. Martin Hall of the Monarchs also beat Craig, but team-mate Dave Beddall finished the evening without a win. Nick Howard played the captain’s role, beating all 3 home players. Martin and David lost the doubles to Nick and Ricky, in the only 5-game match of the night.
Second placed MK Spinners struggled against Greenleys Vanguards and were pleased to come away with a draw, thanks to a maximum for Alan Cherry, who also partnered Jecu Aurelian to a doubles win against Elroy Edwards and Nayan Pattni. Jecu beat Elroy in 4 close games while Gareth Jones went without a win. For the home team, Nayan and sub Sanav Sethi beat both Jecu and Gareth, hile Elroy’s only win was against Gareth. The home team were ahead after set 8 and Jecu’s win and a 5 game win for Alan against Nayan produced the only match draw of the week.
Greenleys Glory matched their best performance of the season in a 4-6 defeat to club-mates Greenleys Warriors. Dakshin Thopay scored a maximum against Darren Ward, Shirish Rai and Ameya Phatak and the evening ended with a 5 win for Division 1 sub Chris Shamuyarira against Shirish, after Captain Lewis Copp had lost his 3 sets. For Warriors, Darren and Ameya beat both Lewis and Chris, while Shirish and Darren won the doubles against Lewis and Dakshin.
LB Generations had this week’s bye.
Player of the week: Nicolas Wong
Team performance of the week: OU Primes
Week 8
Greenleys Monarchs scored their 4th win of the season, beating Greenleys Glory 7-3 with a maximum for Ed Simms, wins for Dave Beddall against Wakan Yu and Lewis Copp, a win for Martin Hall over Wakan and a doubles win for Dave and Ed against Lewis and Dakshin Thopay. For Glory, Lewis and Dakshin both beat Martin and Dakshin also beat Dave, while Wakan ended the match without a win. The result means that Glory are in 8th place, 2 points clear of OU Primes, who had no match this week, while Monarchs remain 3rd.
MK Spinners were the first team to complete their first round of matches, doing so with a win by 8-2 against MK Sasaki. Alan Cherry scored another maximum for the Spinners, supported by a similar treble for Gareth Jones, a good performance after 12 successive losses. Jecu Aurelian’s only success came against Mervyn Phillips, losing to Michael Wilkins in 3 games and to Tarn Gascoyne deuce in the fifth game. Michael’s loss to Gareth in the opening set included a 21-19 3rd game win for Gareth, which equals the highest scoring individual game so far this season. Spinners stay 2nd and Sasaki 6th.
Greenleys Warriors scored their second 6-4 win in a few days, this time at Wing against Leighton Buzzard Generations. The score would have been worse for the home team without a treble from Ben Rolfe against Darren Ward, Shirish Rai and Ameya Phatak, recovering from losing the first 2 games against Ameya with a decisive 11-3 final game win. Graham Cook beat Shirish but lost to Darren and Ameya, while Dave Broome lost to all three of the visitors. Graham/Ben lost to Darren/Shirish in the doubles. Warriors stay 4th in the division and Generations are 7th.
The final match of the week resulted in an 8-2 win for Yardley Titans against Greenleys Vanguards. Despite the scoreline, Titans didn’t have things all their own way, as the match comprised 41 games, with each player involved in at least 215 points and winning over 100. For Titans, Craig Brown and Adrian Piotrowski secured maximums against Elroy Edwards, Nayan Pattni and sub Yevhenil Bohrieiev, although Craig needed 5 games to beat Elroy and Adrian needed a 13-11 final game win over Nayan to maintain his 100% record. Nick Howard’s sole win came against Yevhenil, but struggled to overcome the division 1 player, needing 15-13 and 12-10 wins in the 3rd and 4th games to do so. Nick lost in 4 games to Nayan and in 5 to Elroy in the final set of the evening. Despite losing each of his 3 sets in 4 games, this was an impressive performance by Yevhenil against the Premier Champions, following his earlier 4 wins in matches as a sub against much lower ranked teams. Titans extend their lead in the division and Vanguards stay in a solid 5th place.
Player of the week: Gareth Jones
Team performance of the week: Greenleys Vanguards