Melbourn won 19-5

All refreshed after a week off the 2nds returned to Cambs League action with a short trip to Churchill College to take on Cambridge 4ths.

The first issue of the night was the building work going on at the venue, which neatly segregated the car park from the building housing the courts. Once this obstacle was negotiated and all the players were inside the venue it was time to start… and 30 seconds later it was time for everyone to comment “These courts are icy cold, aren’t they?? The walls are stone dead!”

First into the cooler was Jamie Ware (5) who took on home skipper Jonathan Hughes. It was immediately clear that Jamie was the cleaner of the two players, and would win if he kept himself light on his feet to cope with Jonathan’s admirable attempts to scramble and irritating ability to somehow get the ball not only back, but back popping out at all sorts of unexpected angles. Jamie was mostly dictating the rallies in game one, lost his way for a period in game two as he went for immediate kills that Jonathan had read he would attempt, but once he steady himself to construct rallies took charge again at the start of game three – racing into a 7-0 lead – and eventually came through 15-9, 13-15, 15-7, 15-11 without undue stress.

Next door Matt Walker (4) was up against Stephen Axford. Matt made somewhat heavy weather of the first game as he frittered away a lead and got drawn into a battle. Mistakes at key moments kept undermining his attempts to pull away, the game getting closer than he wanted. However Matt ground it out to take the opener on this breaker… and once he had that really decided the match as Stephen had given his all to the first and fallen short. Matt cleaned his game up, utilising the patented Walker pattern of deep drives and cut-out drop volleys [a patent liable to challenge by many others on the grounds of prior art… but that is not our concern] to take an increasing stranglehold and claim a 15-10, 15-7, 15-7 win.

Colm O’Gorman (3) had followed Matt on to court, up against Anderw Stott who looked like he had classy shots in the warm-up. Colm started well enough, establishing a lead as his more dogged play was initially outdoing Andrew’s stylings. But the game got close, and Colm got a bit tight, Andrew eventually taking it on a tie-break. That proved to be rather pyrrhic for the Cambridge player though as the effort involved had clearly drained his tanks. From game two onwards he was a step slower, which allowed Colm to put him into deep positions where he needed to make his attacking shots from poor court positions. He tried anyway… and made errors. Colm was in increasing command of proceedings as a result and came through 17-19, 15-9, 15-6, 15-8.

A similar contrast in game styles was in evidence as Jan Brynjolffssen (2) took on Chris Smith. Chris had looked to have some really flashy shots in the warm-up, the top-spin backhands were particularly interesting, but once the game got underway Jan found he could read Chris’ attempts to kill in the front corners, which in turn allowed Jan to pump the ball into the icy-cold back corners were it flopped down, waved its legs in the air and never moved again. Chris looked increasingly bemused about why it wasn’t working, with Jan also quietly perplexed about how well things were working – the first two games ended with really lop-sided scores. Game three was closer as Chris played somewhat more conventionally and Jan made more errors than he had in the first two combined, but an acceleration towards the end closed things out for a comprehensive 15-5, 15-4, 15-10 win for the Melbourn player.

The final match of the evening between Liam Murphy (1) and Peter Connaughton was therefore a dead rubber. It proved to be anything but dull though. In fact it was the closest, and far and away the most dramatic clash of the evening.
The pattern of play was set early as Peter tried to catch Liam out with boasts and Liam moved and stretched and lunged in his usual highly accomplished fashion to counter-punch these. Liam appeared to be cruising in the opening as Peter was forced into errors going for too much, with Liam having six game balls at 14-7. Good job as he lost focus and half-a-yard of speed with it, only regaining it when he heard the score was now 11-14. He queried this (it was right) and having woken from the spell he won the next rally to avoid throwing the game away. The second was similar, even though Liam was frustrated by his serve during it. But even so he controlled matters and took a two-love lead.
Game three proved to be a turning point as Liam lost a fraction of sharpness, which let some of Peter’s boasts become the winners the home player needed. Nothing in it as the game went to a break, but it was Peter who claimed it 17-15 to revive the contest. Now Liam was struggling, mentally and physically. His Squash was still there, but the legs and at times the self-belief were not where he would have liked them to be. This saw a lead at mid-game turned around, and we were in for a decider.
If what had come before was drama it was nothing on the last. Liam had a smallish lead at mid-game when a ball off the back wall came all the way back to Peter on the ‘t’. Liam asked for a let, meaning a stroke. Technically he was probably right, but most markers in Division 3 apply the (not part of the rules!) rule of thumb from club play of “no strokes off the back wall” so Liam only got a let out of it. This prompted an eruption from Liam, which didn’t get him the stroke he wanted… but was channelled into six points of massive intensity, all of which he won. With a 13-7 lead it seemed the match was in the bag… which was unfortunate because that meant the wave of emotion subsided and that allowed Peter to claw his way back in, one point at a time. One at a time and seven in a row as 13-7 became 13-14! It looked for all the world like it would be 13-15, only for Liam to make an extraordinary stretching forehand retrieve, another desperation chase to the deep backhand corner, and somehow turn the point around to save the match ball. And then promptly serve out to make himself face another. He saved that one as well, but couldn’t repeat the trick for a third time at 15-16 as Peter’s boast was just out of reach of the forehand stretch. It finished 2-3 against (15-11, 15-10, 15-17, 12-15, 15-17), making the final score 19-5 in our favour.

After the game the news filtered through that Cambridge 3rds had lost elsewhere. Which was important as we had started the evening second in the table to Cambridge 3rds, who were the only unbeaten side in Division 3 alongside us. No longer – Melbourn are now the only unbeaten team, and are top of the table. Whoop!

Skipper Colm reacted thus: “A strengthened Cambridge 4 team present a big challenge for us tonight, and a special mention to Jamie, who stepped in for his first match of the season, winning a tough match. Taking 19 points tonight and going top of the table after 5 rounds puts us in a strong position early in the season.”