The race for the Division 1 Summer League title has been blown wide open this week with Hadleigh\u2019s surprise 6-3 win at Basildon A and Rawreth\u2019s 9-0 whitewash of Invicta. League leaders Hockley A were without a game and led Basildon by three points but now Hockley and Basildon are level on 54 points with Hadleigh just two points behind whilst Rawreth sit fourth on 47 points but with a game in hand on all three teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Basildon were without their star player Ian Wall and undoubtedly missed his presence as Hadleigh swept into a 3-0 lead and then extended it to 6-1 before a late flurry from Basildon reduced the arrears. Simon Jacob was the main man for Hadleigh winning both his singles and Keith Willett and Steve Muth added further points with two doubles wins giving them the six points. Les Hoey beat Muth and Robbie Burton got a surprise win over Willett winning 15\/13 in the fourth set. Burton and Hoey combined to win the final doubles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pre season favourites Rawreth struggled a little at the start of the season but have only lost once and now two successive 9-0 victories have reduced the gap between themselves and the leaders and are clearly back in contention. Their team against Invicta was rarely extended, Kim Shead, Kevin Read and Keith Adams showing their Premier league quality as they dropped just four sets all evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Basildon B picked up only their second win of the season against Matchpoint winning 6-3 and probably ensuring that they won\u2019t finish bottom of the league. That dubious honour now seems to have fallen on Hockley B who are 7 points adrift with one game left to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With one round of scheduled matches to play, Canvey \u2018A\u2019 head the Division 2 table by 10 points from Stanford \u2018B\u2019, but Stanford have a game in hand, so still all to play for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both sides recorded 9-0 victories this week, but by very different routes. While Canvey didn\u2019t have to lift a bat in anger, as Evolve were forced to concede their match, Stanford took to the table and welcomed Hockley \u2018D\u2019 to St John\u2019s Church Hall. The very experienced trio of Mike Trendell, Pat White and John Handscombe got the job done with minimum fuss, just one set conceded all evening. Job done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere, Basildon \u2018C\u2019 beat Invicta \u2018B\u2019 7\/2 and, as a result, climbed above them into third place. Nigel Strike was the POTM here winning both his singles and doubles, well supported by teammates Andy Roff and Steve Walters. For Invicta, there was a singles win for Sarah Ball and, with Mike Keeble, a doubles win to end the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stanford \u2018C\u2019 occupy fifth place after a narrow 5\/4 win over Hockley \u2018C\u2019, in a match where they won 5 of the 6 singles, but were out of luck in the doubles, losing all 3 in the 5th<\/sup> set. Richard Kidd picked up the other point for Hockley. Father and son, Randy and Jake Santiago, both won their two singles for Stanford, and Mark Downey added the extra point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hadleigh \u2018B\u2019 entertained bottom of the table Canvey \u2018B\u2019 and were 7\/2 winners. A good team performance here, with Jan Thorpe and Colin Barham unbeaten in singles for the home side. Jean Catley also made a good contribution with a singles and two doubles wins. For Canvey, Scott Giddens had a singles win over Jean, and the Paul Wade\/Che Martin combination was successful in the final doubles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Runnymede were only able to field 2 players for the match away at Matchpoint \u2018C\u2019. Nevertheless, they picked up 3 useful points with a double for Jonathan Allen and a doubles win for him and Anne Adlington. For Matchpoint, Cooper Hill and Zac Berry both had wins over Adlington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Division 1 report by Paul Strutt<\/p>\n\n\n\n Division 2 report by Dave Woolmer<\/p>\n\n\n\n The race for the Division 1 Summer League title has been blown wide open this week with Hadleigh\u2019s surprise 6-3 win at Basildon A and Rawreth\u2019s 9-0 whitewash of Invicta. League leaders Hockley A were without a game and led Basildon by three points but now Hockley and Basildon are level on 54 points with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4651"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4653,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions\/4653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/ul><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"