Weald 1 v Weald 2

Tonight’s match was the postponed match from earlier in January when “snow stopped play”. It promised to be an interesting match, but there seemed to be a certain amount of bewilderment from the Weald 2 players as they arrived at the club. Trevor was going to be a bit late, so Sarah was standing in trying to work out who was in their team. Dave Beecroft had somehow been missed off the list of invites, but had been contacted late on in the day and cajoled into turning up. But there was still one team position going begging. Luckily for Sarah, Mark Wheeler has just started playing again after a long period of recuperation from a knee injury, so Sarah quickly snapped him up and put him in the sacrificial lamb position of number one. As one door opens, another one closes as Bob unselfishly agreed to play for us despite his reoccurring knees injury giving him jip.

 Once the team members had finally been agreed the captains Noel and Trevor went on to do battle. Trevor knew he had to go for the short shots whenever possible, because he didn’t fancy having any long rallies, or letting Noel take control. The first game was fairly level pegging, but Noel kept his head and took it 9-6. As they entered the second game it was again fairly level pegging until Trevor started to play some tight short drops at the front of the court leaving Noel flat footed and unable to pick them up. With the scores now level, Trevor decided he needed a rest game in contrast to Noel who didn’t want to loose another game tonight. As they entered the fourth game Noel tried to play tighter and reduce Trevor’s short shot which were still catching him out if he didn’t pay attention. The combination of extra concentration from Noel and tiredness from Trevor eventually allowed Noel to take the first win of the night 6-9, 9-7, 9-1, 9-6.

 Meanwhile Pete went on court against Mark who had been unexpectedly asked to play tonight, even though he had already played the team mascot, Ricky, earlier in the evening. Despite his long period off, Mark played a good hard hitting game and was running like a good’n for most of the game. The keenness was there, but the legs started to let Mark down as he kept pace with Pete to 5 points. After that Pete steadily crept ahead to take the first game 9-5. A similar story happened in the second game where Mark was keeping pace, but then couldn’t stop Pete pushing him that bit to hard. By the third game Mark was really struggling while Pete was playing in confident style and didn’t let Mark get any more points, 9-5, 9-3, 9-0.

 Sarah was fresh back from a skiing holiday and was a little bit stiff after playing more games than she wanted to during the week running up to the match. However, she played a solid hard hitting game against Adam and didn’t want to go down without a fight. Adam played his usual selection of double back handed returns, while also running swiftly around the court to give himself a two love lead. The third game was fairly even up to 7 all, after which Sarah sneaked the game from under Adams nose. Things were looking good for Adam in the fourth game as he quickly found himself with match point. From them on he seemed to loose sight of the ball (and ten match points), while Sarah just kept hanging in and slowly but surely levelled the scores and then sneaked another game from under Adams nose. That was it, Adam decided to stop messing about and finish the job off properly, which he did by winning the last game 9-1 (3-9, 4-9, 9-7, 10-8, 1-9).

Playing in his last ever match for the first team (or so he says) Bob took his usual first game to get warmed up. Both players played a tight game that ended at 8-8 before Dave crept into the lead 10-8. Bob had to bring out all his best wrong footing and reverse angle shots into play since Dave was playing tight down the walls, and running about like a mad thing.  As the match progressed it was hard to see who would be the victor as there were some long and hard fought rallies from both sides. However, Bob refused to take off his track suite top, and just kept trying to mess the shots about to put Dave off his guard. This seemed to do the trick, although the final game went to 8 all before Bob finally clinched it 10-8 (10-8, 3-9, 2-9, 8-10).

It was now up to Paul to complete the whitewash for the first team. Normally Paul would not have too many problems against Jim, but tonight Bob had give Jim some tips on how to mess the game up a bit and get Paul off his guard. Along with these tactics, Jim was playing like a man possessed in front of his partner who was watching from the balcony. Jim was matching Paul with crisp and hard shots, and was running about like frightened whippet. It made for very good viewing from the balcony, and Jim won a much deserved first game. After that Paul tightened his game up and sent Jim all over the court with good length shots. This finally pushed Jim that bit too far and gave him a stitch, which stopped him moving at any great speed for the final two points of the match (10-8, 1-9, 4-9, 2-9).