Melbourn won 20-3

Week 6 of the season, and the 2nds were yet to lose a match. Could we keep that record going against newly promoted Kimbolton?

The initial signs were highly promising as Aidan Hird (3) and Matt Walker (5) took the court against Ian Morgan and Adam Jessup respectively, and immediately took firm control of their matches.
Aidan was in ‘Good Aidan’ mode, playing with control up and down the walls to keep the ball to a nice depth – it took a good eight rallies before he finally unleashed the power, by which stage he was 7-1 to the good. Ian fought as valiantly as he could but he was always behind, both on the scoreboard and physically on the court. And he found what many others have discovered before him, that playing from the back of the court against Aidan can be a nightmare. Aidan never let up, keep himself calmly constructing rallies throughout to rattle through a 15-6, 15-7, 15-3 success.

Something similar was happening next door between Matt and Adam as Matt kept the tight and deep, asking Adam to play his touch shots from near the back-wall – not where Adam’s game is at it’s most effective. This lead to a string of errors from the Kimbolton player’s racquet as he tried to make high tariff shots. By contrast Matt was up on the service line, which was perfect for his cut-out drop volleys, which Adam had no chance of retrieving. The only potential issue for Matt was a loss of focus, which he avoided by staying true to his game to wrap up a comprehensive 15-6, 15-6, 15-7 win.

The match was played to the National League standard order, albeit by pure coincidence. That meant the third game on was the top strings, where Liam Murphy (1) took on Graham Uff. And see above, really – Liam always had this one in the palm of his hand as Graham struggled to cope with his spectacular retrieving based on his length and stretch. Liam can always be relied upon to keep the crowd in the match, which he did in this one by making a few unforced errors at the start of ame three that kept it close for a while, but when it came to the crunch Liam’s focus and simple, basic and highly effective defensive Squash was back on show as he rounded out a 15-5, 15-6, 15-11 win.

The 2nds had the win in our pockets whilst Gareth Jones (4) was on court with Andy Rettie. Andy has the touch and court nous to exploit errors if Gareth let’s them creep into his game, and that was the case in the first as Kimbolton got their first point of the evening on board. However Gareth reacted right by going cleaner, simpler and more patient, a generally applicable mantra. That saw him take the second 15-6 and generally take control of the match. From then on Gareth was dictating playing, eventually winning 9-15, 15-6, 15-9, 15-9.

The first four strings were all very quick, and there was concern that we would be at the pub for dinner before they were ready. However Jan Brynjolffssen (2) advised his teammates to wait to call “in case my game goes four or five” – prescient. It didn’t look likely after Jan waltzed through game one against Dave Parker 15-5, but after that Dave began to dig balls out of the deep backhand corner much better, and Jan seemed to lose his way playing loose balls that Dave was able to push forward and boast or volley-drop. Jan was no longer able to read his opponent’s shots and found himself scrambling, losing game two on a breaker and falling 14-7 down in the third. That was a turning point though as from there Jan found that playing with less calmness and more intensity worked – nearly enough to turn game three around as the first 6 game balls were saved (but not the seventh) followed by game four fairly comfortably. Game five was tighter as Dave threw the kitchen sink at it, but a key call from the marker at 12-9 proved critical as he ruled a shot back over Jan’s head had also cleared Dave’s: no let and 13-9 rather than a stroke and 12-10. Jan took advantage of the let off to close things out 15-5, 14-16, 13-15, 15-8, 15-10 and ensure Melbourn’s first maximum point haul of the season.

After the match Jan commented “Well, I couldn’t let us get to the pub too early, could I? I blame my teammates for being all efficient and stuff. Next time, lads, like me and Gareth – put a little bit of tension and drama into the evening!
“That said, it was great to finally get a 5-0 win, which we have been threatening for a while. It took us 20 points clear at the top of the table as well, which is also good news. Somewhat unexpected news. But good, nonetheless.”