Melbourn won 15-10

The 1sts picked up an excellent 15-10 win at Cambridge 1sts in their Cambridgeshire Division 1 clash in a match that turned on its head midway through.

The home side picked up the bottom two strings as Mark Oppen (5) was beaten 3-1 Jamish Mackenzie, Mark’s sole game coming via a tie-breaker in the third (9-11, 9-11, 13-11, 5-11), and Mike Herd (4) was overwhelmed by both the foot speed and shot pace of former Cambridge Uni player Patrick Stewart to lose 6-11 4-11, 7-11.

Vinod Duraikan (3) played what proved the critical string against Cameron Gibb, in an encounter that see-sawed throughout. The opening four games were all close, with never more than three points in it, and were shared equally. Duraikan then seemed on the point of defeat though when facing three successive match balls at 7-10 in the decider, only for him to play beautifully controlled Squash to save them all, and then carried it forward to turn things completely on their head and claim the game 12-10 and victory 3-2 (11-9, 9-11, 9-11, 11-8, 12-10).

That set up Melbourn for their comeback, Chris Shaw (2) recovering from losing his opening game to Grant Bryant storm back and win 3-1 (7-11, 12-10, 11-6, 11-8) and Matt Sampson (1) gritting out a 3-1 win over Ali Dawson in a fast-paced match. Matt deep keep his teammates on tenterhooks by allowing six match balls to go past from 10-4 in the fourth, only to dig in and win the next two points to still complete the 13-11, 11-8, 8-11, 12-10 win in four anyway!