Melbourn lost 3-10

After a month off following the end of the winter league, one might have thought the 1sts would be fit and raring to go for the start of the summer. Well, that isn’t quite how things panned out. Finding three players to travel was tricky, with teenager Will called up from the 2nds (the skippers have top string for the 2s in mind for him this summer), and of those planned to be the 1s squad Jan was playing despite taking to the court somewhat concerned about a groin strain (sustained playing Cricket, of all things), whilst Miles was nicely uninjured… but that was because he hadn’t actually touched his racket since the last Cambs game! Into the unknown we sallied forth.

Jan (2) was the first to try his luck, up against Nick Cooper. It was quickly apparent that this wasn’t going to be a match of extended rallies and draining movement, much to Jan’s relief – Nick’s game was definitely of the All-or-Nothing school. In game one this worked in Jan’s favour as the warm court and new bouncy ball meant Nick’s heavily cut crosscourt drives were not dying as short as he wanted, allowing pushed counter drop kills into nicely vacant front corners. That won Jan the opener comfortably, but in the second he got a little fixated on this and began to tip his hand to Nick, who was now able to get forward to power the drops away for counter-counter kills, pushing him on reach game ball first. However, some tense exchanges when errors were more numerous than winners saw these chances go past, Jan emerging after an extended breaker two-love up.
A big psychological blow, right? Well maybe not as the fixation on counter-dropping persisted, with the ball now being hung up to dry as well. Nick built a solid lead in the third and though things remained scrappy with an error from either player just around the corner, this was enough to see him over the line to pull one back. Game four was a return to game two as Jan produced a little more control and patience but still found himself facing game balls at 12-14. A good tight straight backhand drop won the first, and then a risk-reward serve was too tempting for Nick on the second (tin). A longish rally at 14-all ended with Jan pushing another backhand drop longer than he wanted but finding cling on the sidewall instead. Nick couldn’t scrap it off, match ball. This was converted with a backhand overhead volley-kill to seal a 15-7, 19-17, 13-15, 16-14 win.

An excellent start for the team but could Will Bradshaw (3) continue it? Will had been bullish on the journey up, talking up his determination to run and run. However, he forgot “and run and run and run, and then run some more” which is exactly what it would have taken for him to get the better of Karen Mills. Will’s defensive game is superb, with the crowd marvelling at some of his retrieves, but Karen’s attack was also excellent (Will was already worried about this after the knock-up, when she blasted three straight shots into the nick). There were moments when Will’s pick ups got under Karen’s skin, leading to tinned balls, but overall the chasing involved was just too much, especially as Will was struggling to put it away when he had a loose one – as he commented mid-match “It’s like playing a more skilful version of myself”. Will went down 9-15, 8-15, 9-15.

At one string all it was down to Miles Jeanerret (1) to try and topple Nick Rodousek. Game one featured some long, drawn out rallies… which almost exclusively Nick won. Miles was trying to adapt his shot pace to the bouncy, summer court, taking pace off the ball in search of a dying length, but all this was doing was allowing Nick to volley-hunt and hold the service line. There was also the issue of ring-rust, being Miles first time on court in a while. He seemed to have shaken this off in game two as he was much sharper with his movement and therefore to pounce on his chances; tighter driving lines were also pushing Nick more into the back corners. This put the home player under more pressure, resulting in errors as Miles battled to a tie-break. He even had a game ball at 16-15… but wasn’t able to convert it (Nick saved it well in fairness) and two points later was two-love down. This was decisive, Nick always having command of the third as Miles baulked at the scale of effort needed for the comeback. He lost 4-15, 16-18, 9-15.

And that meant an overall 3-10 reserve to start the season for the 1s. We will get better from here… hopefully!