Melbourn lost 4-12

The 1sts got back on the horse after a two week break due to a bye and a withdrawal from the league with a trip inside the M25 to take on Radlett 2nds.
Mike Herd (2) was the first match on against Neal Woodburn. The first game started with both players probing away at each other until Neal suddenly lost his aim and made a string of errors, tinning attempted kill after attempted kill. Mike did what he needed, stay steady, to win the opening game by a distance. The second remained on Neal’s racquet, but to Mike’s detrminent this time as he cut the error rate down (not to zero, but low enough) to even things up. Neal was observed to be flexing his leg in the second and appeared to have an injury… between points! During them he was moving well enough, and took the third as Mike struggled to re-establish the control he had had in the first. The fourth went the same way as Mike fell 15-6, 10-15, 12-15, 9-15.
Next on was Jan Brynjolffssen (3) against Jordan Clements, who had recently visited Melbourn with Radlett 3rds to play Tom H (Jordan won that one 3-2). Jan had been on the gallery then, so should have had some insight into Jordan's playing style. Unfortunately this only consisted of “nice player, no obvious weaknesses, maybe could drop more, very fit”. Not a lot to go on there. The first game was good clean squash with the ball being worked up and down the walls by both players. The key point came at 13-all as Jan found a dying length in the backhand corner… or so he thought. With no space at all Jordan somehow managed to boast the ball back, and Jan, caught unprepared at having to play another shot, clumped the next shot into the tin. Oops… The game finished 15-13, with Jordan taking the second much more comfortably, despite at one point barely clearing the tin with a serve! Jordan was also up in the third and seemed on course for a 3-0 win until he made a number of out-of-character unforced errors (striving for the finishing line?) to hand the game away. That gave Jan a second wind as he produced his best game of the night, getting a higher court position and taking the ball early on the volley to level things up at 2-2. On to the decider, which was nip-and-tuck as Jordan (who had looked shot physically at the end of the fourth) dug deep into his reserves. The key passage of play came from 8-8 as the Radlett player produced 6 straight really clean rallies. Jan attempted to save the 6 match balls, managed 2 and then gave away a stroke to fall 13-15, 8-15, 15-11, 15-12, 10-15.
The final match on pitted Kate Bradshaw (1) against Ben Bradly. Kate started the match with a stone-cold return volley kill, and that set a pattern of very short rallies. Ben cleared adopted an approach of lob and kill, possibly reasoning that if he didn’t get his kill shot in immediately then Kate would beat him to the punch. This made for a staccato game, with Kate making key errors in shot choice at the later stages as she looked for the even earlier than normal kill. Game two started with a more patient approach from Kate, who produced a succession of cleanly constructed rallies, forcing Ben deep and only then cutting the ball off to get herself 8-2 up. At this point Ben patently gave up on the game to concentrate on the next two, which did nothing to add rhythm to the already chopped up style of play. A good choice on his part as a solid start built him a substantial lead in game three, and though Kate came back towards the end of it this proved sufficient. By now Kate’s head was dropping a bit, game four going much the same way as game three but without the near comeback. It finished 3-1 against Kate, or 11-15, 15-5, 11-15, 6-15 to be precise.
Melbourn skipper Jan commented “On another evening we might have won any of these strings, but overall Radlett clearly deserved their win. Everyone contributed at least a point to the team’s league position though, which is nice. Despite the outcome it was a very pleasant and enjoyable evening of Squash – we look forward to playing Radlett again in the second half… and maybe there will be a different outcome to the evening?”