Melbourn won 20-2

One match stood head and shoulders above all the others in this match, offering drama, passion, shot making, errors, tie-breakers galore, and above all, value for money (= match fee). Can you guess who it involved. Yep, right in one, it was Moises! He was at #4 on this particular evening, up against an experienced campaigner in Martyn Goodger. Martyn moves well and enjoys the front court exchanges, which doesn’t fit particularly brilliantly with the style of game Moises is trying to develop… but does work with the one he can already deliver. That is running around in deeply tenacious fashion, retrieving unlikely balls into the back court and asking the question of his opponent “can you match my physicality?” It became a case of rallies where Moises was reacting – won, rallies where he was dictating – lost. And these were evenly balanced overall.
Tenacity won game one on a breaker, trying to step it up and control things lost game two. Tenacity came back and won game three, with the help of two outrageous nicks in the breaker (what home advantage?). Game four, pushing for the finish, lost. Game five was the match in microcosm as Moises got himself in front, reached match ball at 14-11… and tried to finish things off. To another tie-break. But once again this went Moises way for a dramatic, wild 17-15, 11-15, 18-16, 11-15, 18-16 win.

As for the others, well, they all went 3-0 to the Melbourn players. Jamie Ware (5) had too much game for Kristof Kucharczyk, Jamie dictating each game and pulling clear whenever things got tight by going back to basics. He won 15-7, 15-10, 15-12. Likewise really Matt Walker (3) against Dave Mankellow, though Matt was challenged a bit harder in this one. But when the going got tough it was Matt winning the key points as he came through 15-11, 15-12, 15-11. Colm O’Gorman (2) always had an extra gear against Chris Hornby, Colm feeling well in control as he was able to run down most of Chris’ attacking shots. He won 15-8, 15-7, 15-10. And finally Jan Brynjolffssen did his best to make a meal of things against the hard hitting, hard running Daniel Osborn, letting a 12-6 lead slip away in game one (won on a breaker) and nearly doing the same with a 14-6 one in game two, but he eventually sorted himself out enough to play the solid Squash that added a 17-15, 15-11, 15-12 win to the collection.

20-2 to Melbourn overall as the seconds made it two wins from two this season.