Melbourn won 9-3

The 1sts travelled to St. Albans on Wednesday to play a re-arranged game. Re-arranged, it turns out, to the evening of the Squash medal matches at the Commonwealth Games (congratulations to champions Paul Coll and Gina Kennedy) – oops.
That cost Melbourn the third string as the offer of a ticket to watch the action in Birmingham proved too alluring, and no suitable replacements willing to travel at (only somewhat…) short notice. This meant Jan Brynjolffssen (2) took the court against Nick Medcraft with the pressure on to win or bust. Fortunately Jan started well, and putting together a run of points from mid-game to build a commanding 13-5 lead. He then got complacent/showy, stopping doing what he had been in creating the opportunities to kill and instead looking for the out-shot too early. Nick was too good to take such liberties with and came roaring back to 13-14… but then tinned one to let Jan off the hook. Relieved, the Melbourn player put together a cleaner second game, with a neater conclusion, only allowing three game balls to go by this time (14-8 to 14-11) before converting the fourth. Dead-eyed. By the third Nick was clearly blowing, having done a lot of retrieving on a very warm evening. This time Jan not only cruised through the first three-quarters of the game but instead sustained it all the way to the end, closing out a 15-13, 15-11, 15-3 victory.
That meant the match stood at one string all when Mike Herd (1) and Douglas Hudson took to the court. The play quickly settled into a pattern of Mike controlling the ‘t’ and working Doug around, but the home player running hard and getting the ball back in sometimes unexpected places that occasionally caught Mike on the hop. That led to some unforced errors from Mike’s racquet, but a tight focus in the later stages of the game cut those out, turning a 8-10 deficit around into a 15-11 opening game. The second looked to be going the same way… except when this got to 10-all it was Douglas who produced a string of clean rallies to earn himself four consecutive game points. On the point of losing the game Mike started to swing free, saving the first three with well-constructed rallies and then benefitting from an over-ambitious kill attempt on a half chance to level up. Mike then had a game ball of his own, but now it was Douglas’ turn to play solidly, saving it well. By now it was anyone’s guess who would take the game – Douglas had two more chances at 16-15 and 17-16, followed by Mike at 18-17 and 19-18. But still we went on. Mike also had the game ball at 20-19, and this rally ended strangely when Mike played an unexpected and tight backhand drive, unexpected as his balance didn’t seem to allow that shot… which it didn’t because after hitting the ball he lost his footing! Mike was grounded in front of where the ball went, but Doug had to change direction to get it. The questions abounded – winning shot and no let? Playable straight in response and stroke?. All options were available to marker Nick, and the crowd (1 person – your author) agreed with his call of “Yes let” and his explanation of the only shot Douglas had was a boast, which Mike was not in line of. So Mike got a reprise of game ball… except he was slow to get up from the tumble and clearly testing an injury (Achilles) sustained in the fall. Eventually he decided he was good to go and proved this was right by moving fine in a longish that ended with Douglas making an error to end the breaker at 21-19. Come game three the open question for game three was which pain would matter more – the physical one in Mike’s ankle or the emotional hit Douglas had suffered by going two down rather than back to level pegging. It proved to be the latter as the home player abandoned the game plan that had been working for him (defend and counter-punch) and tried to make the play instead… which just handed Mike court position and the initiative. As with the second string game 3 was one-sided – the same score as Jan vs Nick in fact as Mike wrapped up a 15-11, 21-19, 15-3 victory.
Jan remarked “Whilst it was a shame we couldn’t get three out and give Scott a run at third string, the two of us who did travel did enough to win the night. We each made it a bit more exciting than was strictly necessary as well!”