Melbourn lost 1-12

The second half of the Herts Summer season got underway with the 1sts taking on Biggleswade. So that is Cambs vs Beds in the Herts League. Go figure.

In line with the geographically flexibility on show the first match, which pitted Moises Estrelles Navarro (3) against Richard Anthony was a repeat of a Cambs Winter League encounters, but ones between Melbourn and Comberton – Richard was featuring for his ‘other club’ here (Moises also plays at Biggleswade sometimes as it happens, so they may also come across each other in an internal box league sooner or later!).
Both those Cambs Winter encounters had been epics, Richard winning each 3-2 in the end. However this one started with the Comberton…, um, sorry, Biggleswade player on top as Moises hung deep and tried to play a reactive game. Not what he and Head Coach Chris have been working on, and not terribly effective. Game two saw Moises stepping up to the service line more, which worked, but proved too tiring to maintain – the game go to around 9-all but then Richard powered away to win it. And that was Moises best chance it turned out as Richard, a strong match-player, surged for the line in the third to complete a 9-15, 12-15, 10-15 win.

Next up was Jan Brynjolffssen (2) against Tom Dupuy. The players opted to play PAR-11 for the match, which seemed wise after an early rally went on and on and on. Nip and tuck exchanges occurred through the rest of the opening game, but as it came towards the end Tom edged out a couple of point lead that he hung on to until the conclusion. Jan’s general play had been good in the opener, but a couple of key errors (one tinned backhand drop particularly stood out) had cost him. However, rather than Jan stepping it up in game two it was Tom as he took greater charge of the service line. This led to a quick kill in that game. The third was closer, with Jan getting 8-6 up at one point. That being the point where Tom dug in to see things out, sealing a 9-11, 6-11, 8-11 win… which went down on the league website as 13-15, 10-15, 12-15.

The final match on pitted Mike Herd (1) against Ryan Harper, two players who know each other well. Ryan had the upper hand for most of the opening two games as Mike made uncharacteristic errors on balls he has generally been dealing with recently. These were enough to see the first two escape, leaving the 1sts on the brink of a whitewash. However that motivated the skipper to steel himself, cut out the mistake and instead play some sweet drops as he took the third by a significant margin. Game on! The fourth turned out to be an epic, with the scores swinging backwards and forwards. Each player had chances to win it, but it was eventually Ryan who got over the line as one last error leaked from Mike’s racket. The game scores were 6-11, 7-11, 11-5, 13-15, or 10-15, 11-15, 15-9, 17-19 as we reported it to the league. PAR-15 makes scores look better, doesn’t it?!?