Melbourn won 17-8

The 1sts got the points they needed to stay in Cambridgeshire Division 1 for another season, and a fair amount more besides, by winning their final match of the season 17-8 against Swavesey 1sts.

The situation pre-match was Melbourn were fifth in the table on 151 points, with Swavesey in eighth, aka second-bottom, on 144. Second-bottom equals the relegation play-off (…maybe…) so the boys and girls were after the points to keep their noses ahead and the summer clear. Given the direct head-to-head clash, this simply meant winning a string (any string) as even a 3-2 win would take Melbourn up to 164 points whilst limiting Swavesey to a maximum of 19 on the night so able to get to, at most, 163.

It didn’t take long for this target to be achieved as victory was claimed in both of the first two match on court, Vinod Duraikan (3) beating Tom Wright going away (11-9, 11-5, 9-11, 11-4) and Mike Herd (4) shrugging off seeing a two-games-to-love lead wiped out to close out a 3-2 victory over Arran Smith (11-8, 11-6, 8-11, 7-11, 11-6).

Further wins were added as Matt Sampson (1) fought back from 2-1 down to beat Ali Loke 3-2 (11-8, 7-11, 10-12, 11-9, 11-1), whilst Chris Shaw (2) maintained his 100% record for the season by winning 3-0 over David Roper (11-5, 11-4, 11-7).

Kate Bradshaw (5) rounded things off, but she was denied her usual preparation after being called in as a late substitute due to illness. A complicated evening of rushing around ensued before Kate got on to court, which resulted in an ill-at-ease showing as she lost 3-0 (6-11, 9-11, 9-11) to Tucker Morris.

The comfortable margin of victory was enough for the 1sts to maintain the 5th spot they had coming into the evening, which is a club record placing for the County top flight.