Southend Summer League Division 1
Week 8 report
League leaders Rawreth have now fielded 11 players in their summer league campaign so far and this week it was the turn of Paul Brown to pull on the Rawreth shirt for the first time. He responded with a POTM performance just edging team mates Keith Adams and Russell Mills as they, somewhat predictably, recorded yet another 9-0 victory against bottom of the table and winless Hockley B. He also succeeded in perfecting the Tomahawk smash to the amazement of his team mates! The Hockley boys can take two crumbs of comfort from the match. Firstly they took a set off Rawreth in each of the doubles and secondly, Paul Strutt won more points against Adams than any other player has done so far this season! Gary Beck and Nischal Chugh made up their team.
Basildon A also turned in a 9-0 result at the expense of Wakering who, admittedly, were without their talisman Callum Turner. The Basildon boys made surprisingly quick work in disposing of the opposition only losing two sets all night. Zac England got one against Rob Burton and combining with Andrew Deadman in the doubles they took a set against Burton and Les Hoey. Tony Ayliffe made up the winning team and took the POTM award.
Brand Identity sit third in the table after an 8-1win against Stanford A. Brothers Simon and David Jacob were in unbeatable form winning all their games without dropping a set and Richard Jackman won his games too although he was taken the distance by Pat White. In a strange game the match see sawed finishing 11/8 5/11 11/0 13/15 11/4 in favour of Jackman. Stanford had to wait until the final game of the evening before chalking up their consolation point White and Peter Weatherall beating Jackman and Simon Jacob in four sets.
There were two close finishes in the league this week with firstly Basildon B edging out Hadleigh A 5-4. It was a case of ‘girl power’ proving to be the difference for Basildon as Dawn Baldry turned in a POTM performance beating Dave Woolmer and Satwant Gill although she was pushed close by team mate Arun Joy who also beat Gill and then convincingly beat Mick Tappenden. Basildon lost the first doubles of the evening but stayed in front after that Baldry’s win against Gill taking them to a match winning 5-3 lead before Tappenden and Gill beat Joy and Ashokkumar Sivanandam in the final doubles. Tappenden and Woolmer both beat Sivanandam in the singles for Hadleigh’s other points.
The other close finish saw Hockley A come back from 4-3 down to snatch a 5-4 victory against Invicta A. This match also saw a summer league debut for the globetrotting Tim Pang, returning from yet another holiday to win both his singles against Paul Sims and Lee Marson. Pang had to pull out all the stops against Marson after losing the first two sets he fought back to win the last three 11/5 11/6 12/10. Player of the match however was currently unbeaten Sanjay Saptarshi, who beat Marson and Keith Willet both in straight sets and then teamed up with Pang to beat Marson and Sims in the final doubles and clinch the match. Hockley’s Eamon Hall found the going a little bit too strong losing to Willet and Sims in straight sets.
