The Southend Summer league kicked off with an exciting match between Stanford A and Canvey A in Division 1 which was only decided in the last match of the evening which saw Stanford, 3-1 down at one stage, clinch the doubles and a 5-4 victory. Should you find yourself in a losing position however, it always helps if you have Mitchell Jones in your side and he was Stanford’s hero winning both his singles and doubles and conceding just one set, that being in the final doubles. Rob Salvage provided the other point for the home side beating Jo Hills in straight sets.
Bob Skews was the chief points gatherer for Canvey winning both his singles against Salvage and Adrian Armstrong and Andy Murray won his singles against Hills and the doubles with Skews against Salvage and Armstrong.
Keith Willett of Hadleigh A was another man in fine form winning all his games as his team beat Basildon A 6-3. Hadleigh, in fact, started like an express train racing into a 5-0 lead with Todd Barker, Willett and Anthon Ranjit-Singh all winning their opening singles plus two doubles victories for Ranjit-Singh and Willett and Willett and Barker. Basildon did manage to recover a little from this and Lin Roff defeated Barker, Andy Seaman beat Ranjit-Singh and Roff and Jenne Seibolt combined to win the final doubles. Willett conceded just one set all night in his opening doubles match.
In the only other match played this week the two Hockley teams clashed but any hopes of the B team overcoming their club mates from the A team soon disappeared as the A team proved their superior status whitewashing them 9-0.
The A team of Sanjay Saptarshi, Brian Bissenden and William Evesham were in devastating form dropping only one set in their singles matches, the only signs of B team resistance coming in the doubles. Paul Ogden and Amar Al-Soufi went down 9/11 9/11 12/14 to Saptarshi and Evesham, Paul Strutt and Al-Soufi lost in four sets to Bissenden and Evesham and Strutt and Ogden went down in five sets to Saptarshi and Bissenden. Strutt and Ogden did fight back from two sets down in this one but collapsed in the deciding set 11/4.
Report by Paul Strutt
