Melbourn won 9-5

The 1sts last game of the 2022 Herts Summer League was our shortest away trip of the season as we made the short nip along the A505 to take on Letchworth.

The first game on pitted Kate Bradshaw (2) against Greg Milhouse. This was a repeat of a meeting earlier in the season at Melbourn that Greg had won 3-1 after four extremely close games. However on this evening Kate’s focus was hurt by off-the-court stuff, and she found herself unable to break out of pattern of front corner attacks that Greg was expecting and dealing with comfortably. It all led to a 12-15, 6-15, 8-15 loss for Kate.

Next up was Jan Brynjolffssen (3), who started rapidly against Jason Tinsey, racing into a 7-0 opening game lead. This fast beginning faded, but Jan was still 12-7 up late in the game and seemingly on course to claiming it… when he lost his way totally. Two horror misses on what should have been straightforward backhand dropshots at 8-12 and 9-12 took a psychological toll, Jan somehow contriving to lose a game he had complete control of 15-13! The second saw a more focused performance from Jan, who forced himself to maintain a higher court position to cope with Jason’s boasts and short power kills. This worked decently, Jan controlling the front wall again to level up.
Jason responded though, claiming the third 15-9 as Jan once again lost track of the correct pattern of play and kept hitting it back to his opponent! Teammates advice to hit into the open spaces rather than trying to wrong foot, and that allied with unexpected errors from the home players racquet saw Jan level things up again with a straightforward fourth, and then move into a 5-2 lead early in the fifth.
If Jan had managed to put away another simple backhand drop chance at 5-2 he might have built a considerable lead again, but having missed that and got fixated on it (again!) he found himself dragged into a battle once more. Jason soon had it at 5-all, and after that there was never more than a point or two between the players after that. The match got to 13-all when controversy struck – Jason put a tight drop in that Jan, up near the front wall, was convinced had clipped the top of the tin on its way back in to play after initially striking the front wall cleanly. Whatever had happened though he shouldn’t have stopped playing to appeal for this, and was somewhat fortunate to get a let out of the rally as marker Greg felt unsighted on the front wall ball. An event like that is a rare… except it happened in the very next rally as well as Greg called “stop” to the play after a shot of Jan’s did exactly the same thing he was claiming Jason’s had in the first iteration – clipped the top of the tin and popped up a bit. This seemed a fair call as, even if neither player saw it down (both were playing on), it certainly sounded like this had happened and those on the balcony had seen the trajectory change.
So match point to Jason after all, then. But now Jan really focused [should it have taken that long?!?] and saved it with a hold on a short backhand ball, going crosscourt when he felt Jason moving up to cover the straight drop. Jan then got his own chance on matchball after a loose return from Jason gifted a straightforward forehand volley drop kill… and Jan converted the opportunity as he found one of the very few dodgy floorboard on Letchworth’s very recently refurbished and otherwise generally excellent courts. For future reference of other Melbourn players, that board is deep in right-handers forehand corner… and apparently there is a similarly iffy one in mirror-image on the backhand side wall. Jan won 13-15, 15-11, 9-15, 15-7, 16-14. *phew*

That meant Matt Sampson (1) was taking on Matt Egginton with the evening on the line. Matt E (home Matt) had won all his previously matches this season… apart from the one at Melbourn when Chris beat him 3-0. He was clearly not encouraged pre-game when, as part of a general chat, Matt S noted that he had never lost to Chris, even if Matt had caveated this with “But he has been playing all summer and I’ve been out for months, so he might win if we played right now”. We will see – these guys need to do a challenge match to sort the order for the upcoming winter season (anyone want to sell tickets to that??), but Matt S’s chances of keeping his perfect lifetime record are improving as he plays more and his game reanimates itself, which there was ample evidence of to come on this particular evening.
Matt was definitely a notch or three up on where he had been seven days prior against Haileybury in this one, which was an excellent quality match from start to finish. Matt E contributed significantly to the game with his fleet footed and lung busting movement, but he was generally the play reacting rather than dictating, even when he kept the games close as he did in the first. Part of this was down to Matt S holding his shot to see which way Matt E was going… and then hitting it to a different corner, prompting an exasperated home Matt to exclaim “Stop hitting the wrong shots!”
Some of the rallies and retrieving were jaw dropping quality, with one court sprint that took Matt S from the deep forehand to the front backhand corners and saw him pick up an apparent dead nick dropshot from Matt E probably causing the most bemused amazement on the balcony. To be fair to home Matt he fought valiantly to the end, saving two or three match balls. But eventually the relentless pressure told and Matt S won 15-12, 15-4, 15-10.

Melbourn skipper Jan remarked “It all turned on my game. I made a bit of a meal of it but got there in the end. It was great to see evidence that Matt is working his way back to his previous standards.”