Melbourn won 17-6

Monday nights usually mean home games for the 2nds, but in this case it was on the road as we headed to Peterborough.

The first match underway was the fifth strings, Gareth Jones taking on the hosts Pierre Carruso. Pierre is a solid Division 3 player, with a good disguised attacking boast, but Gareth was on strong form, with consistent hitting pushing Pierre so deep he couldn’t often get it in. He did catch Gareth a couple of times in the first and maybe once in the second, but generally it was Gareth attacking and Pierre defending. This was great as long as Gareth finished the rallies off, which is not always his strength but went really well here particularly on the drop shot – the feet were keeping moving to get the body into position, the swing was smooth rather than stabby… and the results were astonishing as an inconsistent shot turned into a real weapon. With this in his armoury Gareth was too good, powering to a 15-12, 15-8, 15-9 success.

As this was going on play rolled into action on the glass-back show court with Richard Gouriet (2) taking on Jack Bonner.
Both players are new to the Cambs Leagues this season, Richard have got back into the sport after a decade out whilst Jack is new to the area after moving down from Durham & Cleveland recently. He had been playing very regularly for Sedgefield in those county leagues, including an intriguing week at the start of this season when he played the same player three times in a week in County League matches, each of them representing different teams at their clubs. Based on the number of matches Jack played for Sedgefield, he is REALLY in to team Squash – three times in one week was not a one-off, either. Suffice to say one of these players was really sharp and match fit and the other, well, it’s a Work In Progress.
The good news for Richard is we saw flashes of the player we know he is capable of being in this one – there were some lovely lunges and drops played with the racket slicing sideways under the ball to both pop it forward and add spin that drew the ball towards the side wall; the coaching Richard had as a Junior as part of a high level performance group was very evident in those. What was understandably lacking was match fitness… and this was critical when playing someone as match tight as Jack, in a contest of fine margins, long rallies and extended games. Richard did pick up a game along the way, and therefore a point for Melbourn for the first time, but otherwise it was a night of What Might Have Been’s as he lost 12-15, 15-11, 14-16, 12-15. As Richard observed at the end of game three “I really needed that one!”. Indeed.

The second match on the ‘normal’ court would not prove to be a normal contest because of the dynamics of the match-up between Moises Estrelles Navarro (4) and Filip Kaya – essentially it was Moises against Moises as of one or two years ago! Two players who ran like hell and smacked the ball as hard as they could when they got to it. Moises has added more to his game now, and felt like he should be able to kill rallies off against Filip’s loser shots, but this didn’t factor in Filip’s speed on the pick up; rather than winning rallies Moises attempts to play good Squash were leaving him out of position and losing them. Much to his frustration. This was particularly evident in an extended tie-break at the end of the third game as time and again Moises saved a game ball by staying conservative and waiting for Filip to make an error, but then on the next point went for a forehand volley drop and tinned it. Eventually Moises got through this to be 2-0 up, also winning the third narrowly to secure a 15-12, 20-18, 15-13 win that left him both exhausted and a bit underwhelmed… and everyone else getting out the world’s smallest violins. #NowHeKnowsHowOthersFeel!

Moises converts match ball against Filip after an entirely typical wild and hard-hitting rally - the entire match was like this!

Next on the glassback was Matt Walker (3), who was taking on Roland Meli, known as “Vinnie”. Vinnie is another new player to the area and therefore to us, having recently down to Peterborough from Manchester. Matt seemed to have his number in the opening two games as his powerful pattern of pushing his opponent deep and then pouncing on a lifted response to unleash his killer volley-drops was working very successfully. However, game three saw a turn around as Vinnie tried to keep his defensive shots lower and wider and off Matt’s volley, and Matt also tried to rush towards the end by going for attacks on balls that were not quite in the slot. That resulted in a what had been winners in the first two games becoming errors in the third… and the fourth as Matt added tiredness into the equation. A reset at the start of the fifth seemed to have resolved things, Matt powering into a lead that extended to around 12-8 at one stage. Sadly for him (and his record of almost exclusively wins this season) the reaching for the line came back at the death; two attacking positions which went into the tin very late on were particularly galling and key to outcome of a 15-11, 15-7, 11-15, 7-15, 13-15 defeat.

Before the storm: Matt puts away a game ball, back when things were going as planned

Matt’s match took long enough that Jan Brynjolffssen (1) and Justin Snart had both gone on to the ‘normal’ court and left it again before the glassback action concluded. So this wasn’t the deciding match of the evening, despite the order of matches getting underway, which this report follows. Jan and Justin were also on and off pretty quickly as Jan was having a day of days on his attacking shots as everything found a nick. The first game in particular was both very accurate and practically error free, Jan racing through it 15-4. The next two weren’t quite at the same level - well, that wasn't practically possible as game 1 was an unsustainable ratio of tight-and-good to down… - but even so there were moments in it where shots just came off: one forehand drop shot to make it 6-1 in the second, pulled from somewhere behind Jan’s right hip to go tight and straight into the nick, stuck in the mind. Justin seemed a bit deflated by it all, perhaps wondering what he had run in to as Jan cruised to a 15-4, 15-8, 15-8 success.

Jan gets yet another winner against Justin (unseen, but this was yet another nick!)

It all added up to a 17-6 win for Melbourn that keeps us riding nicely high in the table; currently in fourth place, 30-odd points behind the top two of Stamford and Hunts County but with a game-in-hand on both of them and head-to-head clashes against each to come.