Melbourn won 9-5

The final match of the Cambs Summer League sent Melbourn to the St. Ivo club’s newish location of One Leisure Huntingdon.

We travelled with just two players as illness meant this was yet another match played one down – the third time this has happened this summer as playing resources have proved very stretched. Despite this, we had a chance of moving up to either first or second in Cambs Summer League Division 2 (closing half), if we could win.

But that meant taking both strings, and this looked uncertain when Jan Brynjolffssen (1) lost his opening game against talented kid Kieran Weston-Favell (aged just 15, but already >2000 on Squashlevels). However, a change of approach paid dividends for Jan in the second and third as he attempted to slow the pace of the ball down, not playing a hitting game against a clean hitter, and also targeted Kieran’s backhand side. This proved effective, with the youngster’s head dropping as he let both games go once he had got a distance behind.
Jan’s aim for the fourth was “same again”. Unfortunately it was the same as the first, as he lost the patterns and Kieran’s belief came back. It could easily have been a very lopsided scoreline, but from 14-6 down Jan kept playing and dragged it back to 14-12. Then he got tight, played a more diffident rally and Kieran took advantage to power away a backhand kill to make things 2-2. However, the extra work put into Kieran’s lungs (and head) of not finishing the fourth off easily paid dividends in the fifth as Jan moved ahead early and then kept adding to it. One dead nick at 8-4 drew audible exasperation from Kieran, and when this was repeated on a length at 6-9 Jan had the momentum again, taking the next five points to wrap up a 13-15, 15-6, 15-3, 12-15, 15-6 success.

That set up Moises Estrelles Navarro (2) to play Sean Gant, with victory for either team hovering tantalisingly. The game started in messy fashion from Moises as he kept hitting it back to Sean, who sprinted into a 7-2 lead. Worrying… but better focus saw it clawed back to 8-8 and then 13-10 up to Moises. Two more errors followed by Moises, but were swiftly followed by two from Sean to end the opening game and also the realistic worries. The rest of the match was in Moises control, as he always had his nose in front. Sean remained a pest and Moises won’t be referencing this match as a massively good performance, but he always had the needed edge to wrap up a 15-12, 15-10, 15-11 win that ensured we had won 9-5 overall.