After taking no chances by turning out their top three players against Sudbury Nomads the previous week, Braintree Table Tennis League leaders Netts A showed their strength in depth when they turned to their second-choice players for their next match against Rayne B – and still came away with an 8-2 win.

Szczepan Ziobro was unbeaten in his first outing of the season while Joe Meleschko won two, as did Charles Calisin, playing up from division two.

It was back to full strength for their next match, or indeed full strength plus one when they introduced Andy Dosher for his first match in Braintree for many years.

He and Paul Davison were unbeaten against Black Notley A but it was James Hicks who had the busiest evening.  He beat Steve Noble 11-9 in the fifth game and Sam Burrows 13-11 in the fifth, but couldn’t quite manage the hat-trick, losing 12-10 in the fifth against Luke Burridge, the only set the team dropped.

Netts B sit in second place after three successive wins, 6-4 against Liberal A, where Adam Clift was unbeaten, 6-4 over Sudbury Wanderers, where Chris Parr was unbeaten, and 10-0 over Notley B where both of them, and Sean Clift, were unbeaten.

Like Netts A, Liberal A have a wide selection of players to call on and most of them were unavailable to face Sudbury Nomads, which was bad news for Nomads as Liberal managed to rustle up a team that would be capable of challenging for the title if they played every week.

Brandon Crouchman and Scott Dowsett won three each and Adam Cuthbert two in their 9-1 win.

Nomads recovered to win their next match, 10-0 against their clubmates the Wanderers.

Colin Moss came closest to preventing the whitewash by taking Richard Fifield to 12-10 in the fifth.

After a slow start to his recovery from a knee operation – one win out of six – former men’s singles champion Steve Kerns had the more familiar return of three wins in Notley B’s draw with Liberal B.

Report by Ron Fosker