Melbourn won 11-3

An feature of the Herts League is that each Division has a fixed night of the week, unchanging year-on-year. This report won’t consider whether this is a good or bad thing (there are benefits and costs!) but what we will note is that as Division 4 is on a Tuesday evening and Division 2 on a Wednesday, every week the 2nds play the night before the 1sts. And, so far this summer, the 1sts had followed the 2nds lead exactly: each got 3 points in week 1, with the ante upped in weeks 2 and 3 as absolutely identical scores were recorded: 10-4 win for both, followed by 1-12 defeats.

What would week 4 bring? Well, the gauntlet was thrown down by the 2nds the previous evening as they picked up a good 10-4 away win at Allenburys. Could the 1sts surpass that? With a little bit of wiggle room but not much, the first on court was Jan (2), who took on Neil Miller. After some initial testing out, Jan took a bit of command of the opening game as Neil’s preferred game style of tight touch shots was thoroughly undermined by the hot conditions (30C day) and the brand new and bouncy ball. With drops sitting up Jan was able to counter punch away.
Game two started with Jan getting away from the style that had worked, which was him 4-9 behind. However, a reset saw this scrambled back, Jan repeatedly finding a good length that allowed the ball to die in the back corners despite the lively conditions, Neil dropping his court position deeper to cover as a result which in turn opened up the front corners for drops and boasts. Despite the comeback Jan still had to save a couple of game balls, but having done so by committing to his shots Jan was able to take the breaker 17-15. This was a major psychological blow in tiring conditions, the third going to script as Neil looked increasingly exasperated, Jan wrapping up a 15-9, 17-15, 15-7 win to get Melbourn on the board.

Next on was Aidan Hird (3), who took on Kez Pestiaux. It was quickly apparent that the game style of the two players was rather similar, with both liking to hit powerful drives and looking for the kills. Aidan had the greater power on his shots, Kez was the more mobile, but Aidan’s power meant it was he on the front foot and Kez on the scramble. The first was quite nervy, especially towards the end as Aidan repeatedly got to game ball and then repeated tried to play delicate touch backhand drop shots to convert it, despite repeatedly telling himself “That is not your game!”. They didn’t work, but from 16-all a mis-hit return winner, followed by a tight serve and a mis-hit return from Kez that went down did, and Aidan was one up.
This seemed to settle him as the rest of the match saw Aidan looking increasingly comfortable about his game and the situation. With Kez running hard and scrambling it was never easy, but an unforced error was always around the corner as well to stop any momentum. Aidan also had a few mysterious misses (well, it wouldn’t be an Aidan match without them) but on this evening he was able to stay positive and avoid one or two ballooning into 5 in a row. That set the basis for two games of increasing comfort as Aidan wrapped up an 18-16, 15-12, 15-8 success.

Those two victories meant we had the bonus points for the overall win in the bag, taking us up to 9 for the evening with one string left. That pitted Miles (1) against Mark Ellis. Winning a game would match the 2nds once yet again, two and we would break the symmetry (to be fair zero would also break it… but that definitely wasn’t the aim!).
Game one was hard fought, with the lead changing hands on a number of occasions – Miles, Mark, Miles. That got Miles as far as 11-9 up, but from there Mark powered through to claim it, with Miles remarking he had played too many crosscourts and boasts in the game. A renewed focus worked a treat at the start of the second as Miles raced out into 6-1 and 9-3 leads. These were enough for him to cruise it through, catching Mark turning often enough to level at one game all. We were up to 10. Deuce with the 2s.
Hopes that Miles could roll the second straight into the third died swiftly as Mark came out with renewed intensity instead, this time the early advantage (8-2) going in favour of the away player and leaving Miles too much to do. We weren’t going to end up tying with the two again, where we? No we weren’t as once again the player starting fastest ran away with the game, and for the second time that was Miles. Only 8-4 this time but it was enough of a cushion… in part because Miles really hit the attacking gas late on in the game. It turned out after the end there was a reason for this – Miles had felt a nasty blister coming on and was giving it the death or glory treatment. It worked to square things up (and mean we had 11 points from the evening – nerr-nerr to the 2s), but there was a price to play in the fifth as Miles movement was noticeable hampered, especially on the turn. Mark exploited this ruthlessly to run away with that one to make the final score in the match 11-15, 15-9, 10-15, 15-9, 6-15, and the overall tie 11-3 in Melbourn’s favour.

Skipper Jan commented afterwards that “We got three good performances from our guys despite the conditions being tough. Miles pushed a strong player hard in what was a great match, and Aidan produced some of his best Squash on a match court, which was great to see. I was more and more comfortable as my match went on as it was clear the court conditions favoured my playing style more than my opponent.”