Melbourn lost 0-20

Sometimes a match is not meant to be. This was one of those evenings. It had all started to go wrong at the start of the week when the #1 and #2 in the originally planned order (Jan and Matt) were forced to withdraw for injury/family reasons. The 2s were understrength anyway due to availability issues elsewhere in the squad – the five picked were the only five who had said they could make it. That meant we were down to three men, the planned #3, #4 and #5 but playing #1, #2 and #3. Newmarket were aware, and changed their order a little to try and make the strings a decent run out… but as they are going for promotion they were still rolling out rather stronger players than each of the visitors (if both sides are at absolute full strength they are still stronger, to be honest!).

So to the action, or rather to the A14 as an accident threatened to stop Moises Estrelles Navarro, our newly minted No.1, making it at all! But he got there in the end, which was one of the positives of the evening. We won two of the three spins for serve – another tick. And… um, that’s it. As the WhatsApp had it “despite valiant efforts we all lost 3-0”. In detail:
•    Moises (1) lost to Hamish Jogee 10-15, 8-15, 11-15, which was a good effort ( 2% on Squashlevels as Hamish is a 3000 player and Moises ~1600 these days… which is a massive advanced in itself)
•    Sean Hamilton (2) lost 11-15, 3-15, 3-15 to former Melbourn player Ed Aspelling
•    James Storter (3) lost 10-15, 8-15, 9-15 to Tony Carpenter

Mark it down to experience, and move on…