Melbourn won 18-10

Another week, another team match, this one away in Newmarket. A key one for the 2nds to win as Newmarket were not all that terribly far behind us, but are in a relegation battle – we needed a victory to keep ourselves well clear. However, seeing the Newmarket side made it clear this wasn’t going to be easy; they have got some injured players back (but have lost others) and seemed far stronger than their 8th out of 9 spot in the standings would imply. If they can get the same team out regularly they won’t stay down there.

As a for instance, Paul Bragg has often played in Newmarket’s top strings, but for this one he was at 5. This was some challenge for 15 year-old Will Bradshaw, who had a win in the adult leagues under his belt from the week before but that had come against an even younger kid rather than an experience campaigner like Paul.
The first game was tight, but for most of it Will had his nose ahead as he hit hard, low and crisply and moved well. Will got to game ball at 14-11, but then began to try and force the winner in rather than the consistent play that had got him to the position. Paul also started running harder than he had mid-game, and this allowed a turn around with Paul claiming the game on a tie-break. This somewhat undermined Will, whose head dropped ever so slightly in the second which was still tight, but went away from him.
Game one had seen Paul boasting and dropping to draw Will into front corners and following up hard behind it. Will was attempting to counter-drop to catch Paul defending, which wasn’t working as the Newmarket player was very high up the court. Game two saw a change to cross-lobbing from those corners – also not effective as Paul was far enough forward to cut the balls out before they got too high. But game three saw a breakthrough as Will began to straight drive from these spots, using his highly flexible wrists to create the racket head position. And this worked as Paul couldn’t cover low and hard down the wall, meaning he had to drop back a little, which in turn gave Will some extra space at the front. Despite the change, it was still Paul with his nose in front. In fact he had match balls at 14-11, but Will played three very solid rallies to save them. 14-all saw a let up with a loose ball that Paul killed to earn himself another chance. This time the Newmarket player dictated the rally… I was going to say “made all the running” but hard running was Will’s thing in this one. ‘Never give up’ saw him make three incredible pick-ups of seemingly match-sealing shots before he eventually ground Paul down to level up at 15-all. Will then saw one game ball pass by at 16-15, but converted the next one at 17-16 to be back in the contest. Cue raised arms from Will and “B*gger” from Paul.
Will has taken games of adults in the past, often the third ones, and then gone on to lose 3-1. But not this time. This time he stayed tough and focused in a very tight fourth. But one where, when things got close, Will was just ahead. 14-13 up, and when this game ball wasn’t converted earning himself another go at 15-14, and this one was. That meant we were on to a decider. Will started well, but then Paul had a run to get himself a small but significant lead: 11-8, 12-9, 13-10. Eventually he got to match ball at 14-12 after a slightly lucky kill, but here Will excelled with two hyper determined and laser focused rallies, nothing fancy, nothing risky just good Squash. Both saved. And then he kept it up with a third straight clean as a whistle rally to earn himself his first match ball; Will was on top in this rally, Paul was defending hard, but Will stayed patient and eventually got the job done with a deep cross backhand that drew a boast response, followed by a late flicked backhand cross-drop that went across Paul’s bows as he thundered up to the front backhand corner for the expected straight drop.
A breakthrough success for Will, that he will remember (especially the extraordinary match-ball save in the third) for a long, long time. The game scores are exhausting just to read: he won 15-17, 11-15, 18-16, 16-14, 16-14.

Things were nearly as dramatic on the glassback next door where Colm O’Gorman (2) was taking on Daniell Overett. Your correspondent was mostly (almost entirely) watching Will’s game, so this is second-hand reportage. One source was Colm’s young son, who said his Dad was playing really well, and had gone two games to love up. This turned out to be… slightly inaccurate as others reported Colm had taken a while to warm up and was instead 2-0 down! The second game was better than the first though as Colm got his legs going and his counter-attacking game on Daniell’s low hard play more into it. This translated into one and then two games back as Colm got under the Newmarket player’s skin – muttering off the court between games being the source for this. Unfortunately game five saw Daniell knuckle back down and Colm being to come up short and this all added up to a 6-15, 10-15, 15-9, 15-10, 8-15 loss.

Second up on the glassback was Matt Walker (3) against Tony Archer. Tony’s teammates had clearly seen Matt before (many times) as they were warning him “He likes to drop”. But forewarned is not necessarily forearmed as Matt was finding great joy in the front corners, aided by a court playing on the colder/lower side of the spectrum. Matt wasn’t enjoying this particularly as he complained that he couldn’t get a length, but that wasn’t where this string was being played, it was the front court exchanges that were going to decide things. Could the pressure Matt was exerting undermine Tony’s self-belief. It seemed to in the opener, as Tony made a number of uncharacteristic mistakes, including two straight truly perplexing ones from 15-all to gift wrap the opener.
The same pattern continued in the second; short rallies, Matt trying to cut it in early but also attempting to make sure he didn’t over-egg the attacking pudding. Getting the first attack in of the rally was key, but so was doing so at the right time, when the ball was truly attackable and not just because ‘We’ve played two shots each, must be time to go for a drop!’ Once again the pressure Matt was exerting was messing with Tony’s game as the home player couldn’t get a rhythm and this resulted in another tie-break win for Matt.
After two close games the third appeared to be straightforward as Matt’s confidence soared and Tony’s dropped. The pattern was now well set with Matt cutting short and it not being picked up. This allowed him to race out into an 11-4 lead, which soon became 14-6. 8 match balls. Done and dusted, yes? Matt clearly wanted it over ASAP as he snatched at the first couple earlier in the piece than he had in setting up previous rallies, missed them… and then got cautious and lost another couple of points. 14-6 was now 14-10 and the tension was ratcheting up. Another good rally from Tony saved a fifth straight game ball, but finally at 11-14 Matt put in the sort of determined, patient but not passive rally that had got away from him, drawing one last error from Tony’s racket to wrap up a 17-15, 16-14, 15-11 success.

Whilst this was going on Moises Estrelles Navarro (4) was taking on Wayne Bamforth next door. This match offered a significant contrast in styles as Wayne, a former Badminton player of significant class, has excellent kills whilst Moises’ strength is his high intensity defending – flying about the court like a human superball. This made for a ridiculously tight contest, well mostly. Game 1 went to a tie-break but dropped Wayne’s way, with Game 2 the outlier as the home player came off his level a bit and that allow Moises to take complete control and race away with it. We were back into the breakers in games three and four, with an epic in the third breaking eventually Wayne’s way only for Moises to show his mental toughness by not folding and instead staying in the contest before claiming game four on another breaker.
All had turned the contest into a physical as opposed to a shot-making battle. This was to Moises advantage allowing him to claim game five to wrap up another lung-busting victory (his best sort) 14-16, 15-4, 17-19, 16-14, 15-12.

Moises win meant Jan Brynjolffssen (1) was playing merely for pride against Graham Clark, though neither realised this at the start (Moises and Wayne were still underway at that point) and it turned out after the fact that Graham had got the wrong end of the stick midway through, thinking Wayne had won and this match was therefore the decider of the evening. That explains the home skipper’s determination after Jan had won a scrappy opening game on a tie-break and then claimed the second when a medical issue flared up mid-game for the home player.
Would Graham have even continued if he had realised the bonus points for the evening had already gone Melbourn’s way? Maybe, maybe not, but either way Jan gave a masterclass in playing against an injured player… in the sense of “This is how NOT to do it”. From being solid Jan started to over-force, allowing rallies to stay short and making mistakes. This saw him drop a distance behind in game three and though he closed at the end he eventually lost it 15-13, two more poor choices in the final two rallies costing him the game.
And, as it turns out, the match because Graham fought like mad from here on out, rattling through the next two relatively quickly as Jan flounder and foundered, his usual assured game seemingly completely lost. It all added up to a 17-15, 15-10, 13-15, 8-15, 7-15 loss which had the unusual aftermath of both players cursing and disappointed – Jan for chucking away a two game lead that he really should have seen out to a 3-0 win against an impaired opponent, and Graham on discovering that playing through the pain barrier hadn’t, in fact, won his team the match as he believed, on leaving the court, that it had!

And so a close, close game came to an end with the 2nds the relieved victors by 18-10. That keeps us mid-table in the Division 3 standings, well away from the dangers of both the bottom and top end. Mediocrity, we embrace you!