Melbourn won 9-4

The second match of the Summer in Cambs Division 1 sent the Melbourn side to the Uni couts to take on Cambridge 1sts.

Having two courts at their disposal meant Cambridge could open up with two strings playing simultaneously – Colm O’Gorman (2) taking on Russell Lewis and Will Bradshaw (3) making his first team debut against Chris Smith.

Lets start with Colm, who had the upper hand against Russell for most of his match. All bar the majority of game three, really. Colm had breezed through the opening pair, winning each 11-7 as his movement was too sharp for his opponent. However the third looked almost certain to be a game back when Russell got himself 10-3 up. But the last point is the most difficult… and so it proved as Colm somehow saved 7 consecutive game-balls. From 10-all he wasn’t about to let up, winning the next two to complete an 11-7, 11-7, 12-10 victory.

Meanwhile Will found himself up against it with Chris, who, in Will’s own words, “does everything I do… but better”. Will tried an approach of rallying up and down the walls and grinding away, relying on his movement and fitness. This wasn’t winning him points though so he tried to change it up with surprise boasts and angles… and Chris was getting those two. Hmm. Will tried and tried, and the Squash produced by the two players was very clean, good-to-watch stuff, but it all tipped the Cambridge players’ way as Will went down 3-11, 5-11, 4-11.

That meant it was a string all when Mike Herd (1) took the court against Paddy Patterson. The first game featured a series of lung-busting rallies with chances to kill at a premium. Mike, especially, hung tough through these and played on and on until he had earned the chance to step in on a short cut-out, whilst Paddy began to look for more unlikely exits… and only really found those with unforced errors. The second wasn’t quite as clean from Mike because, frankly, it couldn’t be – the opener was somewhere near his maximal level – but it was still good enough to build a 2-0 lead as whenever it was really needed an unforced error appeared from Paddy’s racket, most notably on the last two points of the game. That was simple a measure of the pressure Mike was putting on, which became evident in game three as the Melbourn player eased off ever so fractionally… and the game changed, with Paddy dictating the exchanges to pull one back. Mike processed the setback well though, pushing his court position higher again and upping the foot speed. This once again had Mike in control as he wrapped up an excellent 11-4, 11-9, 7-11, 11-6 win.
And that meant Melbourn had their first summer league win. Hopefully many more will follow.