There were some huge wins in the summer league this week with Basildon A, Invicta A, Stanford A and Rawreth all crushing their opponents with ruthless efficiency.
Basildon A got the ball rolling with a 9-0 win against Matchpoint A conceding just one set all night. Les Hoey, Lee Marson and Garry Hartgrove were in impeccable form the only blip during the evening being Dan Stewart edging Hoey 14/12 in his four set defeat. Debbie O’Neil and Hannah Harbour made up the Matchpoint team. First game of the season for Basildon and the perfect start!
Invicta A had lost their opening match last week but bounced back against Canvey A with an impressive 8-1 win. Malcolm Henstock lost to Bob Skews for Canvey’s consolation point but otherwise he, Tony Ayliffe and Paul Sims were always in control against the Islanders. Closest game of the night turned out to be the last one as Sims and Henstock just edged out Skews and Jo Hills in five sets.
Hockley B fell foul of a Stanford A side led again by Mitchell Jones and suffered their second 9-0 defeat of the season. Jones didn’t concede a single set all night although Richard Kidd managed to get to 11/9 in the third set of their match. Rob Salvage won both his singles in four sets against Paul Strutt and Amar Al-Soufi and Adrian Armstrong won both his, but not before he found himself 2-0 down against Al-Soufi before convincingly winning the last three 11/1 11/5 11/4. Al-Soufi did pick up a slight injury in this match which may just have made the difference.
Rawreth A started their season with a convincing 8-1 victory against Hadleigh A. James Elliot was the player of the match winning all his games, closely followed by an unbeaten Russell Mills. The only blot on the copybook was Kim Shead’s defeat to Neal Barker in straight sets. There were some close games in this match but, overall, no game went beyond four sets.
The only match which didn’t turn out one sided was the clash between Basildon B and Hockley A. Despite losing the opening doubles Hockley just kept their noses in front leading 2-1, 4-2 and 5-3 before losing the final doubles of the evening. Despite the closeness of the match score the individual games were far from that all but two games going beyond three sets. Longest game was Stuart Adshead’s five set victory against Dawn Baldry and Adshead and Sanjay Saptarshi both won all their singles whilst Baldry and Peter Hilton both got the better of young William Evesham. The win keeps Hockley top having played three games.
Team of the Week – Basildon A
Player of the Week – Garry Hartgrove
Report by Paul Strutt
