|
1st Team V Davenport 31st July 2007 |
|
|
|
|
By Paul Clarke
|
|
Tuesday, 07 August 2007 |
|
A lovely sunny evening greeted Davenport’s visit to Mersey in our 3rd last of the season.
Davenport had been having a tough season, they mentioned that they were short of 2 to 3 players from the club from last season and that had a knock on effect both at first team and second team level.
This was their second team and currently they were at the wrong end of the table. We had a strong side out although with Dave Sadler away on holiday Paul Mannion paired Tony Burgess making it Tony’s 4th different partner of the season so far. I again played first couple with Mark Bailey and Jon Sherlock and Neil Cutler played together as they had done at Mellor the previous week.
Its great to have someone like Neil available and playing, by his own admission a bit rusty after a few years out of the game but a very handy match player still who has added depth to our squad and hopefully will shake off the rustiness with more sets.
First round for Mark and I was over quite quickly a 6-0 6-0 win, Paul and Tony were a bit slower out of the blocks winning the first on a tie break 6-5 but then once in gear won the second set 6-0. Neil and Jon also won both sets 6-4 6-5 which meant a great start to the match and a 6-0 first round lead.
Onto the second round and in impressive style Paul and Tony won against the first couple 6-1 6-0, with me and Mark also winning comfortably 6-1 6-0 against the 3rds put us into a winning position. Neil and Jon lost against the 2nd pair, who were Davenports best on the night.
After 2nd round to be 10-2 up was a winning position; main factor for the last round was finishing time and therefore how many sets could be played. In the end Tony and Paul playing hurry up got both sets in 6-0 6-0, me and Mark a single set 6-0 and Neil and Jon were 5-5 when time was due but agreed to play the tiebreak….. hindsights a great thing!!!!
Overall a 13-3 win a good result.
So 8 gone and 2 to play, calculations are that if we win next match vs Ryecroft we will finish no worse than runners up and if that does happen, it will be a straight winner take all clash for the league in our last match vs Lindow on 16th Aug.
If however we were to lose vs Ryecroft then we would have to beat Lindow to at least secure the runner up position.
Paul Clarke
|
|
