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1st Team V Knutsford - 22nd April 08 |
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By Paul Clarke
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Thursday, 01 May 2008 |
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First game of the 2008 summer season in Division 3 after promotion from 4b last year.
This would be a good test of finding a level for this season. The aspirations are that the team will look to compete towards the top end of the division and barring injuries, holidays and other factors I think we have a squad (albeit a small one) to try to do this.
Knutsford are similar to us in that they had been promoted from Division 4a last season and they had already played Hale last week and lost 8-4 in which there were 2 crucial tie breaks, so this would be a tough opener.
I played first couple with Mark Bailey and immediately the difference in standard was evident from what we have been playing all through the winter and we really had to lift our game. We managed to win a close tie break to take the first set 6-5 and an similarly close 2nd set saw us take that 6-4, so a great start against a good couple.
Dave Sadler renewing his summer partnership with Paul Mannion from last year saw them get off to a sluggish start and lost the first set 6-3 to the second pair however a dominant 2nd set which was won 6-2 meant a decent half.
Simon Jones making his debut after joining from Hazel Grove played with Neil Cutler and got off to an absolute flying start winning the first set 6-0 and were looking comfortable at 4-1 up before a comeback started, however Simon and Neil kept the momentum going to win it 6-3.
After the first round we were leading 5-1 and really that was a great position to be in at that point in the first match.
Into the second round, me and Mark got off to a slow start in both sets against the 3rd couple, however recovered in both to win 6-3 6-1, with Paul and Dave also winning both sets against the first couple 6-3 6-5 it gave us a winning start. Neil and Simon maybe felt they could have got something out of their match against the second pair but had a couple of crucial breaks of serves and they went down narrowly 6-4 6-4.
Overall a great start to the season, a 9-3 win
Due to early finishing times at this stage of the season, we only played 2 complete rounds and the further the season goes on the more we will complete full matches.
Paul Clarke |
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