Melbourn lost 9-16

The 1sts trip to the Uni 1sts ended in a narrow defeat.

The students had the better of the lower strings as Mike Herd (4) was beaten 3-1 by Ellie White and Mark Oppen (5) went down 3-0 to Adam Brass. Melbourn struck back when Vinod Duraikan (3) came out on top against Kan Weng Yean in an epic encounter that went all the way to the wire – Vinod shrugging off not seeing things out in an extended game four tie-break to win the fifth 11-9 and triumph 3-2.

Chris Shaw (2) continued his hot streak of form with a 3-0 win over Isac Anderson to bring the scores back level – he is yet to lose this season. Matt Sampson (1) looked set to complete the job as he built a two-games-to-love lead against Raphie Reeves, only for the re-occurrence of an injury to tip the balance the other way, Matt falling 3-2 in the end.

That left the Uni winners 16-9 overall, and saw the 1sts drop a spot to seventh in the table. A big one against Cambridge 1sts awaits next week.