Melbourn lost 10-14

The last match of the opening quarter of the season sent the 1sts north to take on March.

The match started off in disappointing fashion as the player due to play Mark Oppen (5) didn’t show, meaning he travelled and got no play. Hmm. That did mean Melbourn had one 3-0 win over their belts though.

March put this underwhelming start behind them by claiming string 4 as Miles Jeanneret was beaten 12-10, 11-13, 11-4, 11-3 by Christopher Parsons. Knowing the games of both players – lovely and clean with few mistakes but more defensive counter-punching than shot-makers – and looking at those game scores I’m thinking games one and two were pretty epic and those took all the sting out of Miles’ legs… Melbourn responded though as Vinod Duraikan (3) beat Avi Warren 11-8, 11-8, 11-6. Both Vinod and Avi have been around on the Cambs Squash scene for many years so I’m guessing there were no secrets here.

That put Melbour two rubbers to one up going into the top two strings, which both proved to be intense and drawn-out battles. Chris Shaw (2), up against Mark Davis, won his opening game on an extended tie-break, but was then narrowly edged out in the next three that were nearly as close, one of them another breaker. Game scores were 14-12, 9-11, 10-12, 8-11. Matt Sampson (1) also won his opening game on a breaker against Scott Drewery, and established a two games to one lead at one point, but was eventually undone by the Scott’s youth and fitness (he is in his early to mid-20s) as he outlasted Matt 3-2 (12-10, 7-11, 11-7, 7-11, 3-11)

The final score was 14-10 to March.

The 1sts go into the half-term bye week in 6th place out of the 10 teams in Division 1, with 42 points to their names from their four fixtures so far. Around 10 points per game would have had the side in mid-table last season, so this counts as an encouraging opening for sure.