Melbourn lost 11-5

The youngest Melbourn 1sts side for some considerable time, featuring two out of three players in their 20s (whatever next?!?) went down to an equally spritely in spite of being slightly more experienced (*ahem*) Haileybury team in an engrossing match.
Haileybury’s courts are at the public school, though the sports centre is not as palatial as the stuff outside. Once in the walls of the place a sports centre is a sports centre, really. And the players were all Hertford area local rather than pupils… who will all be doing their exams at the moment anyway. That meant Melbourn’s Tom Higginson (3) was holding up the banner for youth (aged 20) against long standing Herts county leagues player Karl Pyle. It was soon clear the match was going to be feature many extended rallies, with the ball hard to kill. This fitted into Tom’s retrieving style and allowed his great movement to show up as he made it hard to Karl to kill the ball. That gave Tom the opener, before Karl got on a run of inch perfect shots to level up. Game three saw Tom back in charge, forcing errors from Karl as he went for his winners, but then the fourth was a bit or a ‘mare for Tom as out of nowhere he lost his rhythm. Or was he saving his energies for the decider? Maybe that was it because Tom was back on it from the outset, though the most notable period was a string of perfect points from around 8-8 to build a 13-8 lead. This was enough to see Tom home for a hard-fought and impressive 15-12, 13-15, 15-9, 4-15, 15-9 success.
Melbourn’s own greybeard Jan Brynjolffssen (2) was next on but pleased to find himself pitted against the similarly aged Andrew Humphries (within months as few found out in the bar later). Shorter rallies were guaranteed, because that was what both players wanted. By unspoken agreement shot 20 was the final one of any rally, whatever the circumstances! Not that many rallies in game 1 got close to that far as Andrew produced a string of unexpected errors to hand a slightly bemused Jan the game. The home player came back in the second and was right on it in the third, which he won comfortably as his superior shot-making came to the fore. Jan battled back, working hard to extend rallies (no, really) and from that was able to grind out the fourth. The Melbourn player was looking the fitter of the two ahead of the decider, but Andrew always had the greater touch. And that proved to be decisive as the errors of the opener were replaced again by clean killing that left Jan disappointed but not really believing he could have done more. Jan lost 15-12, 11-15, 6-15, 15-9, 5-15.
This set up Miles Jeanneret (1) to take on David Gandolfo with the match on the line. Miles started very well, moving sweetly around the court. As was remarked he never looks like he is working super hard, he just gets to where he needs to be really fast – a clever trick if you can pull it off (it’s called accurate footwork!). Steady shot making back this up to produce a good lead in the early stages… but then home player David began to get his own game going. If Miles is fast, David is lightning around the court, and this began to get under the Melbourn players skin as shots that are winners against almost anyone else were coming back. However after losing points in bunches in the rest of the first Miles steeled himself to the need to play four stone-cold kills to win each point. This lead to a very close second game that was only decided by the smallest possible margin when a sharply hit shot at him forced Miles to put a potential kill down. The third was also as close as it can get, though that was down to David digging in as Miles had led the game 12-7 at one stage. A comeback to 12-all made for an epic ending, with some extraordinary retrieving from both players – these last few rallies were clearly the highest quality ones of the evening. Sadly for Miles and Melbourn three of the four went David’s way – the fist-pump when he killed the ball at 14-13 was entirely justified. The game scores were (Miles first) 8-15, 13-15, 13-15.
Melbourn skipper Jan remarked “This was an excellent night of Squash, that Haileybury probably just about shaded. But we gave them a real run for their money.”