Melbourn won 12-4

The 1sts took on Haileybury in their latest Herts League match, not exactly sure what to expect against a team that had won all of their opening three games. As it turned out it was three good matches, but all breaking in our boys and girls favour.

First up was Mark Oppen (3) against Karl Pyle. Mark is known by his teammates as “the King of the Five-Gamer” – and this one was no exception as he had to recover from two games to one down to win. But win he did, coming through 3-2 in the end (15-10, 11-15, 8-15, 15-11, 15-8).

Next on was Kate Bradshaw (2), who took on Alistair Lee. Kate has been flying recently in all sorts of contexts, putting together a long winning run that was pushing her Squashlevels number back towards the 3000 mark. This streak continued as she recovered from dropping the opening game narrowly to power away from Alistair, winning 3-1 (13-15, 15-8, 15-6, 15-12).

That meant the top string rubber between Miles Jeanneret (1) and Andrew Humphries was for pride and minor points only. Miles sneaked the first on a breaker and then edged the second. These wins proved vital in the long run as though Andrew took the third the full fightback was going to need too much gas, Miles building on those narrow opening two to close out the 3-1 win (17-15, 15-13, 11-15, 15-7).

Victory took the 1sts top of the table. Which is nice...