Melbourn lost 9-15

The 1sts were edged out by three strings to two in their Division 1 clash with Cambridge University 1sts, which had been re-arranged to half-term week to fall within term time.

The match was a see-saw encounter, with Mark Oppen’s match at fifth string being it in microcosm. Mark opened up a two-games-to-love lead, but then saw this gradually whittled away by Callum Harvey as he lost 3-2. Miles Jeanneret (4) won his opening game after a very extended tie-break with Ellie White, but this proved a false dawn as the next three escaped him to go down 3-1.

We fought back with wins at second and third string as Chris Shaw (2) continued his excellent form this year to beat Raphie Reeves 3-1, critically claiming the 4th on a tie-breaker – Chris remains on a 100% winning record this campaign as a consequence – whilst Vinod Duraikan (3) won clutch points in his second and third games (12-10, 11-9) to close out a 3-0 victory over Kan Weng Yean.

That sent the match to the top strings, but here (for the second week in a row!) Matt Sampson (1) was matched against a young aspiring pro, Sampson losing 3-0 to Prithvi Singh as the students claimed an overall 15-9 win.