Melbourn won 12-3

The seconds welcomed St. Albans side Nuffield 4ths to Melbourn looking to bounce back after a first loss in five games the previous Tuesday.

The first to attempt to rectify things was teenager Will Bradshaw, who was up against Nick Herodotou. It didn’t take that many rallies to establish that Will was able to play the cleaner Squash, and that both his shot weight and his movement were going to cause Nick a lot of problems. A very focused effort was the opening game claimed 15-6. This large margin of victory was arguably a little dangerous for Will as it encouraged him to take things more lightly in the second, the resulting lack of focus seeing more errors come from his racquet than in the very clean opening game. However Nick was also capable of mistakes, including one critical one where he served out just as Will’s early advantage in the game was dwindling. Will took the gift and ran with it to close out the game, and then built on that with a switched on third where he didn’t allow the oddities in Nick’s play to annoy him, closing out a 15-6, 15-11, 15-7 that was all the more impressive for the calm maturity it involved.

Next up was Moises Estrelles Navarro (2), who had a serious challenge on his hands against Scottish Masters International Mhairi Gritz.
Not that this seemed to bother Moises in the opener as his ability to fly around the court blunted some of Mhairi’s key weapons, in particular Moises’ ability to chase down her attacking boasts. With the Nuffield player struggling for a pattern that would win her rallies, Moises took advantage to go a game up. The second was similar, with the only real difference being a handful more errors coming from Moises racquet. Could her repeat it in the third and seal a 3-0 win that would have been significantly against the Squashlevels of the two players (~1650 for Moises to ~2300 for Mhairi)? Well, no, because that number shows how good a player Mhairi is, and faced with a conundrum she found a way to play, pushing Moises back and taking charge of the front court. This turn around saw the Nuffield player work her way back in by claiming the next two. All down to the decider, where there was nothing left to lose, prompting Moises to step his movement up another level of intensity. This, just, did the trick, Moises scrapping and battling to a 15-8, 15-10, 12-15, 11-15, 16-14 win.

The last match on was Jan Brynjolffssen (1) against Douglas Hudson.
The early stages of this established the pattern of play as both seemed happy to knock the ball up and down a wall for ages. The hitting was tight, but Jan’s length was better as he trapped Douglas back there often enough to win the opener convincingly. The second was tighter, but once again Jan was in control as he built an advantage from mid-game to see things out. Could he win it 3-0? Not by going 0-8 down to start the third, he couldn’t. So fight salvage a tiny bit of pride, but not much as Douglas was now on the metaphorical front foot and literally holding the ‘T’ as he won the game 15-5. A reset was in order for Jan, which he managed between games to come out hard in the fourth. Whereas drop shots at the start of the third had gone into the tin, in game four they went up and 0-3 was now 3-0 instead. This set the pattern as Jan built a big lead early on, and then exchanged points through most of the rest until he had closed out a 15-6, 15-12, 5-15, 15-10 win.

The 12-3 overall win was enough to lift the 2nds back to second in the Division 4 table. And with a game in hand over most of the teams immediately behind them, to boot.