Melbourn won 20-0

The Seconds opening match of the 2022/23 Cambs Winter Leagues was one of our longest away trips of the season as we headed up the A1 to Stamford.

Most of the journey up went OK… up until we got within a couple of hundred meters away. Then one player who will remain nameless (let’s call him J*n) confidently stated “I’ve been here loads of times before, I know the way. It’s up there” Ten minutes of random circling of the back streets of Stamford later we finally stumbled across the right turning, so instead of having a few minutes to stretch the journey from their legs no.s 4 & 5 Gareth Jones and Jamie Ware had to get rapidly changed and rush on to court. D'Oh! [Colm – see what happens when you delegate… 😉]

Fortunately this didn’t seem to affect Jamie as he swiftly took command against Jai Nairn. Jamie was to dictated the play through the match, with Jai attempting to scramble to stay in rallies. This proved to be rather effective though as Jai’s retrieves were coming back in unexpected places, catching Jamie in a kind of Schrödinger’s cat-like state of being both absolutely in position (standing where most would have predicted the ball would go) and completely out of it (…but not where it actually went!) at the same time. This resulted in some hard chases and lunging movements, of varying effectiveness, to close the thing down. In Jamie’s own words what this resulted in was “certainly not pretty, but it got the job done” as he won 3-0.

A different challenge was presented to Gareth on the other court as he came up against an athletic looking teenager, Chase Burgess. The Melbourn player was the one more likely to do the unpredictable in this match as Chase looked to have a very well-constructed game. Indeed the Stamford youngster built himself a 12-6 lead in the first as Gareth struggled to find a pattern of play that hurt his opponent. Part of the problem was Gareth was positioning himself rather deep, worried (excessively as it turned out) by a couple of early winners Chase had hit past him… which simply had the effect of giving Chase the front wall to kill it! When Gareth forced himself higher up the court the pattern immediately changed, five straight rallies clawing it back to 11-12… only for two rather horrid unforced errors to see Chase to three game balls. Rope-a-dope? Nope, just dopey, but the soft nature of these give-aways focused Gareth’s mind and the next three rallies were clean as a whistle as he saved all the chances. That set up a very nervous tie-break, with both players having opportunities to close things out before Gareth got one to cling to the backhand wall to claim an opening game he had seemed twice-over unlikely to win.
This appeared to settle the Melbourn player, who started the second game in control, leading through most of it. However things would get tight once again as Gareth still had in mind some first game drops that Chase had cruised swiftly up to retrieve, which lead to him repeatedly eschewing drop shot chances and instead hitting back to the teenager who by this stage was hanging very deep on the court and gasping for breath.* These choices saw Gareth contrive to fall game-balls down again (14-12)… but then, just like the first, he found a way to get out of the hole he had dug for himself to once again claim the game on a breaker. This was a spirit-crusher for Chase, especially after Gareth had brought himself to believe his teammates advice that drop shots were the route to victory. The third was consequently one-sided with Gareth finally making the most of the openings he had created to win 3-0.
* - Those who know Chase will be very surprised by this happening after only one-and-a-half games. Perhaps, just maybe, his pre-match prep of two full matches and a gym session was a touch on the heavy side… 

Drama was less evident when Liam Murphy (3) took on Tim Collins. Tim’s game appeared to be based on taking the ball in short and doing so early in the rallies. Not at all to Liam’s taste as he never got a rhythm going, but something he was able to deal with adequately well thanks to his long frame and good control on the lunging stretch. Tim kept searching for holes, but even time one appeared Liam soon found a way of plugging it as he kept his nose in front throughout to secure another 3-0 for Melbourn.

A very similar pattern held for Jan Brynjolffssen’s match at second string against Ian Bell. Jan was finding himself in front of his opponent for most of the opening game, both in position in the rallies and in terms of the scoreline, but he was never able to shake Ian off as every time he opened up a few points lead the Stamford player found a couple of tricksy angles to close things back up again. Jan got to game ball first though, and despite seeing one chance go by at 14-12 was able to convert at 14-13 when a held drive got too deep for Ian to dig back. The second was much the same, Jan coming through this one 15-12, and that was moreorless that as by the third Ian’s movement was beginning to slow up, Jan rounding things off in reasonable comfort.

The final match of the evening saw Miles Jeanneret (1) make his first appearance for Melbourn in the Cambs League as he took on home skipper David Harris. The first rally saw Miles move David around and force him deep, killing it off with a tight straight backhand drop. The second rally was the same, some penetrating depths creating the space for a straight backhand drop winner. And the third. And the fourth. And the fifth! Was every rally in this match going to finish the same way?!? No, because whilst the sixth rally also ended with a very tight backhand drop, this time it was David playing it! In fact it turned out the Stamford man’s drop shots were exceptionally tight, he just wasn’t getting a chance to play them as Miles pinned him into the back third of the court. The second and third games were both closer as David dragged his position forward to where he needed to be, on the service line. That gave him a chance to play his shots but was also risky as it allowed space behind that, if Miles could find it, would force David to turn and try and retrieve from tight spaces in the back corners. Whilst this pattern was better for the Stamford man than the one that had held in the opening game, and the pair produced a good number of watchable rallies from their exchanges, it wasn’t quite better by a good enough margin – Miles was still picking up four points for every three conceded, which was enough of a differential to secure the 3-0 win and see Melbourn home for the 20-0 overall success.

Fill-in skipper Jan commented “It was a bit of a curious match, really. Stamford are new to our Division so we were not sure exactly what to expect. It turned out to be a series of players with effective but unconventional styles of play that were a bit frustrating to counter. But we all found a way to get the wins. Winning 5-0 away without dropping a game is a great start to the season”

He then proceeded to give just as bad directions on the way home as he had on the way up, contributing to a post-midnight return home for the side (the A1 and A1260 being closed also didn’t help). Stamford to Cambridge is via Kettering, isn’t it???