Melbourn lost 5-9

The seconds wrapped up the first half of the summer season with a trip to Welwyn to take on Gosling 2nds.

First on court was teenager Will Bradshaw, 13 (nearly 14… but not quite yet) who took on Adrian Rates. Who is at least 14. Three times 14. Plus a bit more.
The match started with Will doing a good job of putting into practice the his coaching and the gameplan, stepping up to volleying his returns and subsequently to try and hold a high ‘T’ position. Adrian was probing away to find Will’s weaknesses… but was initially mostly picking out a key strength as Will scrambled around rapidly to pick up a number of attempted kills. Will was hitting crisply and used this to build an early advantage of a few points which he held through most of the game, until the conclusion approached when he started to get more cautious and consequently slipped 13-12 down. However a clutch rally was clinically played to level up at 13-all, and this was followed by a dead nick on serve for a wonderfully timed (from Will’s perspective!) ace. Serve was also key to winning the game ball as Will played a clever one with about three different spins or it (or, possibly, he framed it…), the ball going just above the front wall cut line and bouncing just beyond the service line. Adrian seemed nonplussed by this and returned casually as he was convinced something had to be illegal about it. Will promptly dropped the loose ball to win the point and game. After a brief debate about the serve, with the entire balcony confirming it as completely legal (but not cleanly struck), a fist-pumping Will had his first game in adult Squash under his belt.
Unfortunately this didn’t quite prove to be the herald of a first win as Adrian started the second game by upping his intensity and speed of shot, with Will going a bit conservative in his court position and shot choices in reaction. Encouragingly he seemed to recognise the issues and pushed himself higher up the court in the latter half of game two, producing play more like game one, but the early deficit conceded proved too much to overcome. This was a turning point as Will’s confidence declined and Adrian’s experience of how to win points came to the fore. Games three and four went to the home player by comfortable margins as a result leading to an overall 15-13, 10-15, 5-15, 3-15 defeat for Will.
The positive vibes of the opening game weren’t quite sustained the whole way through, but even so this was a significant milestone in Will’s development.

The evening then split on to two courts for the remaining games, to make sure they were done and everyone showered and changed before the Leisure Centre shuts at 10:00. That meant Jan Brynjolffssen (1) was taking on Dan Sadler whilst simultaneously Liam Murphy (2) faced Chris Tutton simultaneously.
Both matches were characterised by one player being very frustrated that the other seemed to have all the luck. With Jan and Dan it was the visitor who appeared to have the local knowledge as Jan repeatedly found nicks, particularly deep in Dan’s backhand side, doing so most often and notably in game one. Game two was closer as Jan lost his way at times (one poor choice to boast rather than drive stuck out – failure to apply the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” principle) but then played some clean rallies at the death to wrap things up. Game three was closer again, with the scores nip-and-tuck for the first time. Dan seemed to have made a significant break when he won three rallies from 10-all to lead 13-10. However Dan was gasping for air at this point and Jan sensed and exploited this to grind his way back in, playing two physical rallies to set up a simple deep-short combo which brought things back to 13-all. Taking a leaf from Will’s book (tactical masterclass) Jan served straight into the nick to go 14-13 up, and then found the back nick in the backhand corner one last time to wrap things up in appropriate fashion – if the match had a signature shot it would have been Jan driving down the backhand rail and the ball dying a death back there. Jan won 15-5, 15-10, 15-13.

Unfortunately for Melbourn next door it was Gosling’s Chris who was getting seemingly lucky repeatedly (it’s usual to quote Gary Player here “The harder I practice, the luckier I get”) which was making Liam climb the walls. Liam would feel in control of rallies, working Chris around, but when he went for his kills Chris’ speed got him to the ball and then his unconventional front-on swing would not only dig the ball up but also send it in a direction that Liam wasn’t expecting, keeping the Melbourn player twisting, turning and generally off-balance. After two games of frustration Liam knitted it all together in game three, punching the ball deep repeatedly to tight lengths early in the rallies to open up big enough front corner holes to get the ball to bounce twice before Chris could rush forwards. Sadly for Melbourn the positive vibes of game three were wholly absent from game four as early rallies went against Liam, who began to rage at the world as he slid to a 11-15, 13-15, 15-6, 7-15 defeat.

Jan was Melbourn’s skipper on the evening. He commented “The most memorable aspect of the evening will remain Will getting his first game in senior Squash. That contributed a league point – his first for the club, hopefully and presumably the first of many”