Melbourn won 3-1(ish)

3-1(ish)? What? How come we don’t know the exact result? Well, the first problem this game through up for skipper Colm O’Gorman was finding five players who were both available and eligible to play in this Cup game – the rules of the competition are that only those who have previously played a league game may appear in the County Cups. Sensible, but somewhat restrictive for any side who has had good availability for the league games only to find regulars unavailable in Cup week. Which, irritatingly, was exactly where the 2s found themselves.

That meant the Moises Estrelles Navarro’s clash with Chris Talbott at fifth string was officially lost before Moises had even hit the court – he only travelled to give Chris a game, really. Which was a shame as he turned in an excellent performance to pick up a 3-0 win against a player who Squashlevels would have picked to beat him. But it didn’t count towards the three wins we needed to progress, which left it up to the rest of the Melbourn side to deliver.

This was something that both Matt Walker (3) and Jamie Ware (4) did in impressive fashion, seeing off experienced campaigners in Oliver Pynn and Gary Last respectively, both by a score of 3-1. Each match was distinctly losable, and in the end that would have seen Melbourn eliminated, so it was key that both Matt and Jamie gritted things out.

Next on was Colm (2), who probably shouldn’t have been playing anyway due to illness but did so for lack of alternative options. Colm’s hopes weren’t high against a very handy shot-player like Paul Bragg, who has the game and experience to make things really tough for an opponent who would really rather not be running hard. Colm started off strongly, racing into a 7-1 lead in the opening game but was rapidly running out of gas, Paul fighting back to take the game after an extended tie-break. This was terrible news as far as Colm was concerned – not only had he expended a substantial fraction of his likely maximal effort he also had nothing to show for it! From there on out it was really just a matter of time, and how much Colm was willing to hurt himself fighting against the inevitable – this turned out to be considerably as Colm forced each game to go the distance… and still had nothing to show at the end as he lost 3-0 anyway. Sometimes life is unfair!

This meant the match all went down to the top string as it was 3-1 to Melbourn on the court, but 2-2 on the scorecard. Liam Murphy (1) had to win against Graham Clark. Which was looking distinctly unpromising when Liam found himself two games down and generally frustrated with his game. However Liam hung tough, using his fitness and reach to stop Graham’s momentum and take the third game. This turned things on its head as Graham began to take greater and greater risks to try and flip things back the other way. Which didn’t work as it just played to Liam’s counter-punching style, allowing the Melbourn player to come storming back and win 3-2, which also made the overall score a win for his team; be it 3-1 or 3-2 – pick your poison.

We appear to be a little ahead of the rest of the Hereward Cup draw – this was the first QF to be played. Well the deadline for getting it done is still a way away – the QFs are to be played by 31st March. In fact one of the first round games, pitting St. Ivo against Saffron Walden, is still to happen (and that is overdue as it was meant to be out of the way before Christmas). The Semi will be against either St. Ivo or Walden or Peterborough… but we probably won’t know which until the league season is over and Easter has gone by. The Semis just need to be played by Friday 19th April, with the Finals day set for Saturday 20/4.