Mens Results 26 May 2009 Part 2

Div 6 at home against Collegians
Lost on points.....Julian reported:

• I lost 3-1 to a D2 and showed everyone how to dolly up half court shots combined way too many cross courts gimmes.
• Alan started with a hiss and a roar winning the first against a junior. Despite a brave fight he lost the next 3.
• Matt stepped up at short notice (thanks Matt) to take down a fit lefty in 4. Lots of great rallies with plenty of guts from the older lefty to keep up with Matt.
• Helen played last and was pushed at times by the D1. Helen's superior shots cleaned up her opponent 3-1 in the end though.

New team away to Wainui
Lost 3/1.....Dikesh reported :

• I played a D2 player and lost in 3.
• Andrew played a D2 player and went down in 3.
• Tom played an E1 player and went down in 3.
• Ajay played an ungraded player and won in 3.

So overall result we lost 3/1 to Wainui.

Three of what will be Dikesh's regular players were unavailable so thank you to Tom and Andrew for helping out - especially considering the travel required :)

Mens Results 26 May 2009

Morning all,

Only two men's teams in action this week. My team had to win to stay in Div 6 by beating a young and determined Collegians team. It was 2 matches and 8 games all at the end but we lost by 4 points.

The only other team in action Tuesday night was our new team captained by Dikesh Parmar. They played a grading match against Wainui losing 3/1. This probably means they'll be div 9. More detailed results below.

Rules and refereeing evening
A great turn out last night - good to see so many of you (and the juniors) down there. Hopefully everyone learnt something.

The WindowMan had a solid run on the quiz scoring 49 out of 50. However, he was usurped as the rules king by Mr Batchelor. Dan scored a very impressive 100% on the quiz. Don't worry Al - we know that you still know it all!

If there was a prize for the most questions asked then junior Sam Allen would take that out hands down. Poor Sandra Tinkler was trying to leave the building to head home and Sam could be heard still asking "....Is it a stroke if......". Got to love that boy although willing to trade him for a deaf mute if anyone is offering.

No interclub next week however there'll be a number of us at the club on Tuesday night if you're keen for a hit. Enjoy your long weekend.

Julian

Mens Results 19 May 2009

Reports have now come in from the Men's teams.

• All 3 men's team had a count back scenario. Unfortunately only Tony's team came out on the right side of the ledger.
• As Tony reports below, the Men's 1 team had a good win to avoid a relegation match. Unfortunately the Men's 2 team can't say the same -we have a relegation match against Collegians next Tuesday night. We can kick some butt though I'm sure. Men's 3 fought hard but had a narrow loss to Island Bay.
• Tony has written the next novel in the Dan Brown series (his report below). Although full of drama and suspense, it is unlikely this one will be a big screen smash though (like The Da Vinci Code and Angels andDemons). A very good read though Tony!
• Rules and refereeing evening is still next week - Thursday 28th May at the clubrooms starting 7.30 pm. See you there.

Julian

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Men's Div 10B team were at playing away and lost against Island Bay..... James Hippolite reports....

• Dikesh, our one and only D2 player, just back into the fray after a period away, played an opponent of ungraded but roughly comparable skills. Dikesh won 3/0.
• Bruce, our E1 senior, played Steve, another ungraded but skilful player. Bruce lost 3/0.
• Jordan, our E1 junior, played Josh. Jordan lost 3/0.
• Werner, our E2 junior, played Brian. Werner won 3/1.

Island Bay won 7 games to 6.

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Men's Div 6 team were at home and lost to Mana..... ring in Dan Batchelor reports....

• With the Northern men's 2 team cemented firmly at the wrong end of division 6 they had to get the big guns in this week for the clash with Mana, but unfortunately to no avail, going down 2-2 on matches and 9-7 on games...Promotion relegation now beckons next week.
• I played at number one against Brent Smyth, a similar graded player and in the end was lucky he ran out of steam after he had me on the ropes early. A dodgy call from Brent for set 1 in the second game lead to a 9-8 northern win and was the turning point.
• At number 2 Andre went the same way as Brent, running out of puff after fighting hard throughout to go down in 4 close ones against John Poppleton.
• Meanwhile, Alan had the misfortune of coming up against an improving Rob Greene and the superior fitness of the youngster once again proved to be decisive.
• Finally, the match of the night was between the number fours and was certainly a game of two halves with Matt taking on the higher graded Chris Mundy. Chris took out the first two games fairly convincingly, but at last Matt sprung into action in the third game, (spurred on by a few dodgy calls from the ref) he pulled out two skunkings in a row followed by a fairly lop sided score in the final game to win in 5 and pick up a bundle of points for his efforts.
• Squash was the winner on the night.

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Men's Div 3 team were at home and beat Fraser Park.....Tony Blackler reports....

• We went in sitting in relegation spot, knowing we probably needed to win, and win well to avoid relegation - in fact it was possible that we could still be on the bottom of the table after winning 3 of the 5 weeks!! - go figure !!
• We took on Mike Leigh and has Fraser Park cohort ...
• 1st Craig D playing at #3 - started the match with precision drives and artful drops to take immediate command - won the 1st and then went on to chase down a big lead to take the 2nd - clearly on our way to our 1st victory ... NOT ... the other guy came back and turned the match into a great battle and after 3 games that went long pulled off a win in 5 ...darn! - but Craig played well and we had our 1st 2 points in the bag...
• 2nd Jason S playing at #2 - he has been playing really well of late and utterly controlled the match from beginning to end running his poor opponent ragged in the process. 5 points now and looking good ...
• 3rd was Andrew P playing at #1 Vs past Northern club champion Mike Leigh- this was going to be the tough one - Andrew protecting a pulled muscle and really up against it - we needed him to get at least a point or two to help us avoid elimination ... Andrew out to a quick lead, his combination of length and deft drops keeping him on top of the game, and keeping Mike scrambling, an easy win in the 1st, great stuff. On to the 2nd and it was only a matter of time before Mike warmed up and we were nervously anticipating that 1st big stretch he would force Andrew into -that could be the end of things ... however Andrew continued his dominance over Mike and again easily took the 2nd ... could it be?, might Andrew get away with playing injured?, into the 3rd in this now crucial match, again total dominance over Mike and an easy win - Well done #1, great effort and beyond our expectations.
• We had now secured the nights win and with that bonus point we now had 9- possibly enough but if either team above us scored more than 6 points that night we would still be on the bottom - still needed just a few more to try to make us safe ...
• Last to play was Craig H - he's been playing well lately and he was our 'ace in the hole' positioned down at #4 - our confidence was starting to glow ... 1st game, full of confidence and his cheeky grin (which normally means lots of little drops and fancy shots coming up -sometimes not all good ...) his opponent admittedly looked as if he would be more comfortable in front of a computer screen or in the frontrow of a "star trek" convention, however looks were deceiving and this boy could hit the ball hard and clean, possibly catching Hoppy by surprise (as with the rest of us) as he went down initially before mounting a comeback - things now even at 1-1, Hoppy showed a little more precision and poise in the 3rd to take the lead before coming out in the 4th with .... yup, that cheeky little grin was back ... oh, oh ... down again in the 4th but a really good close game, now 2-2 and heading into what was probably the longest game of the night (well it certainly felt that way for us watching it anyway) .. another really close one but unfortunately not in our favour as Craig went down in 5. We will remember this guy for next time - he isn't what he looks like ... he's actually a pretty good player ...
• At nights end we had secured the team win and a total of 11 points -probably enough we thought, but still no guarantee ...
• With the posting of the initial results early Wednesday morning we finally saw the outcome of our efforts, we had avoided the dreaded relegation playoff spot through the marvellous efforts of our players and of Martinborough (our new best friends) who destroyed poor Waikanae placing them now in the relegation seat.
• Well done to all the team - you have earned a weeks rest.

Men's Interclub 12 May 2009

Men's Div 3 - Tony Blackler didn't play but did report a 3-1 loss at home against Martinborough...... Hi all, Not so flash last night ...Started well with Dewsy back to some good form in winning 3/0. Then Dan went on fight valiantly in 5 very even games to narrowly go down. Then a reportedly 'broken' Andrew went down in 3 to a another B1 - tough match up. Then Hoppy lost in 3 to a high B2 who after a few long rallies, outlasted him and pulled ahead to win.

Men's Div 6 - Alan Lavery briefly reported a 4-0 loss away againstMitchell Park...... Rex Mar was beaten by young Scott Galloway 3-0. Andre Neill lost to Greg Gambitsis 3-0. Alan Lavery lost against Big Owen 3-0. John Conroy lost to John Brooking 3-0.

There were a couple of skunkings in there where two of us (Andre/John) lost a game 9 zip. We had clean undies on though! Rex was always up against it playing young Scotty. Andre had to face another up and coming junior. Alan felt he didn't play his best and Owen is a good player when he puts his mind to it. John played well for most of his match and his recent coaching/practice was shining through - just needs to throw the right knock out punch after his hard work pinning his opponent in the corner :)
By contrast, here's what Rex reported.....I played Scott Galloway. 0/3. Strong start but followed up with 2 silly games. John played John Brooking. 0/3. Many unforced errors, couldn't pull it together. Andre Played Gregory Gambitsis!?! 0/3. Old drunk guy against younger sober guy. Alan Played Owen Ngarewa. 0/3. Sneaky out of shape guy against dodgy older guy. Sneaky won on the day.

Men's Div 10 Pool B - James Hippolite reported a 3-1 loss at homeagainst Tawa....... Due to the flagitious behaviour of others, I was forced to make a call, and change the members of my team for our home game against Tawa:

• Jordan Bailey won against James, 9/6, 2/9, 9/4, 9/4.
  Looked strong from the start.
• Fletcher Tay lost against Malcolm, 9/0, 9/0, 9/6.
  He got better toward theend there. Just needs some more practice, and he'll be back to hisformer Malaysian champion best.
• Graham Commins lost against David, 9/5, 9/3, 9/2.
  Not a bad first outing for Graham.
• Bruce Gray lost against Kevin, 8/10, 9/6, 9/3, 9/0.
  Just lost some fitness towards the end there.

Lessons from Masterton

Masterton was an education; an education I would now like to share with you for the benefit of future captains, and others.

The first lesson was it takes 1.5 hours to go from Newlands to Masterton normally. It takes slightly longer if you're leaving at 5:30pm, because of peak hour traffic on the motorway. It takes slightly longer still, if a traffic cop decides to pull over a car, and the entire three lanes of Hutt traffic decides to slow down to take a look. And finally, it takes just a little while longer if some people in your car demand to be driven to the new MacDonalds 24/7 drive-through in Masterton.

The second lesson is, "don't have a Mac Attack before a game." Both juniors (age, not rank) have now learned this lesson, and will never do that again. Their original aprosexia was alleviated, but at the expense of their inability to get to the ball.

The third lesson is, go as a team in one car. It makes the long trip fun and worthwhile.
The fourth lesson is, if you don't want to add stress to your lives, then don't leave the organising of your team until last thing on Tuesday!

All of this verbosity is designed to hide the fact that the scores from our matches were abysmal: Sam Oldfield vs. Bruce Gray: 9/5, 9/0, 9/6. Mitchell Hammond vs. Jono Cunningham: 9/0, 9/7, 10/9. Tim McKay vs. Werner Schulz: 9/6, 9/7, 10/8. Baden Grey vs. James Hippolite: 9/2, 9/0, 9/4.

So far and yet so near

We ripped through Tawa as if they weren’t even there and watched Island Bay do the same to Mitchell Park as if they weren’t even there. Given the high energy levels and time on our side we declared war on Island Bay and took them out winning by one game. That would effectively put us in third place.
Russell won his first without any real pressure and then succumbed to a beating in the next 3 games
Andrew took his game to 5 , mighty battles losing the last 10/9
Bruce massacred his opponent with clever lobs and power drives 3-0
Jordan played hard and well, won in 3 , last game 10/9
The doubles afterwards did not go well with Jordan and Bruce dominating Russell and Andrew
The food was brilliant, especially that fish pie and our South African hosts were magnificent.

Real Winners

We beat Mitchell Park B 4 zip to take out the Div 4 title but it was anything but easy.

Playing Angelos Gambitsis (D2) first up, I lost the first game and then decided to play proper squash to win the next 3. I had match point to 5 in the 4th and squandered the lead to be game point down. Sense prevailed and three quick rallies later I had the game and the match.

John was up next against Scott Tiler (D2). John saved his best for last. After losing the first game, he too switched on to win the next 2 games. A momentarily lapse in the 4th made it a 5 setter. John kept his head, applied pressure through good straight, long shots and let his opponent make lots of mistakes.

Alan felt like he needed a good run so allowed his opponent Bruce Neilson (D2) to stretch the match out to 5 sets. A change of racquet at the end of the 4th game saw a change in attitude from Alan and he won the 5th easily. The racquet he changed to was actually broken before he went on court. Observers were gob smacked that with a bag full of racquets Alan had declared the only broken one to be the best for the job. He proved his point!

Matt continued his unbeaten run downing Shane O'Grady (E1) easily in 3. There were a number of great scrambling rallies where both players retrieved the ball from very unlikely positions. A number of times the person doing all the scrambling won the rally. Just shows you should never give up. Was nice to have Matt's parents there to see him play well and secure a good win against a player who won't be in E grade for too much longer.

Well, we looked unlikely number 1 seeds after out first round loss to Tawa. We didn't loose a tie after that.