Melbourn lost 7-16

A first career win in the topflight of county Squash for teenager Will Bradshaw was the highlight of the 1sts match away to Hunts County 1sts.

A player shortage saw Hunts forfeit string 5, leaving Melbourn 1-0 up to start and seeing Will play Marcus Lattimer at fourth string. Both players are hard running and hard hitting, but with a clear age difference (Will is 16, Marcus has seen his 50th birthday) which was a key advantage for Will to exploit. He looked to challenge Marcus on the volley for the first two games, looping his serve up and then peppering the back corners. This worked nicely to establish a two-game lead. The next two saw Will move away from these tactics and attack the front corners instead, looking for early winners. This didn’t work so well as Marcus got up to the short balls to counter-kill. Back to 2-2. However, a reset and re-engagement with his game plan in the fifth proved effective as Will powered through to claim an 11-7, 11-6, 8-11, 5-11, 11-7 win.

Sadly that was as good as it got for Melbourn, with Hunts claiming the other three strings to turn the match around. Miles Jeanerret (3) raised hopes when he took his opening game against David Robinson, but then saw the Hunts player power back to send Miles to an 11-8, 6-11, 2-11, 5-11 loss. Mike Herd (2) was also in the battle against Colin Griggs, for two games at least. Both went to breakers, but when both went against Mike is was too much and he went down 10-12, 11-13, 6-11. The top string pitted the two club’s head coaches against each other, Chris Shaw (1) taking on Rob Dadds. This went with ranking though as Rob is the clear County No.1, Chris finding the going tough as he was beaten 2-11, 3-11, 2-11. Simply winning a point against Rob (nearly 25k on Squashlevels) is an achievement in itself; getting to 11 in a game was too much of an ask even for Chris (circa 10k).

It all added up to a 16-7 win for Hunts. But the night will mostly be remembered for Will’s breakthrough Division 1 win. The first of many, surely?