Rawreth have set out their stall early in Division 1of the Southend Summer League following up last week’s 8-1 win against Wakering with a 9-0 demolition of Hadleigh Forum A. A completely different line up to the previous week saw Deborah Auvache, Peter Barrett and Kevin Read pick up the mantle and they had little difficulty overcoming their opponents only one game going the distance. Forum’s Tony Jacks actually held a 2-1 advantage over Barrett in this one but succumbed 11/7, 11/7 in the final sets. Not surprisingly Rawreth are the early leaders after their two wins.
Invicta A and Basildon A both kicked off their season this week and both recorded 6-3 wins against Basildon B and Stanford A respectively.
Basildon A, led by an in form Les Hoey, started well against Stanford leading 3-1 only to find themselves level at 3-3 after wins for Peter Weatherall against Charles Yeung and a doubles win for Pat White and Ian Sangster against Yeung and Tony Ayliffe. After Hoey dismissed Sangster in three sets to take the lead back they then found themselves involved in two hard five set matches which determined the victory. Closest of these was Ayliffe’s come back win against White, finding himself two sets down he took the last three sets 12/10, 11/9, 11/9. It couldn’t have been any closer! Yeung and Hoey then took on White and Weatherall and eventually edged to victory winning 11/7 in the fifth. Hoey took the Player of the Match award.
Invicta’s win against Basildon B came after a disastrous start to the match losing the first three games. Ashokkumar Sivanandam and Dawn Baldry started the evening with a comeback win against Lee Marson and Anton Ranjit-Singh. They managed to reverse a 2-1 scoreline winning the last two sets 11/4, 11/9. Jenne Seibolt then pulled off something of a shock win beating Steve Marr in straight sets before Dawn Baldry made it 3-0 on the night defeating Ranjit-Singh in four. Invicta then started a remarkable comeback Marson winning both his singles against Sivanandam and Seibolt, and Marr and Ranjit-Singh beating Seibolt and Baldry to level the score at 3-3.
The next two singles were crucial and, as may have been expected from two players bearing the longest names, possibly, in the league, Ranjit-Singh and Sivanandam fought out a long five set match 10/12, 11/5, 11/13, 11/9. 11/2 in favour of the Invicta man. Marr then found his form to overcome Baldry in another five set match before he combined with Marson to win the final doubles and clinch a 6-3 victory. Two games and two defeats then for Basildon B.
