By the far the biggest individual success story of this season centres around the youngster, Adam Pettitt, playing for Electricity III in Division Two of the Leicester & District League.
Last season he was propelled headlong into Division One and, not surprisingly, struggled to win three of the 32 sets played with the team relegated. But those three successes showed promise as it is a tough division for anyone let alone someone playing in the league for the first time, and as a junior. This season has been a vastly different kettle of fish as Pettitt is currently on 86% in Division Two and getting better all the time.
His one poor match came early in the season when he lost all three against Knighton Park’s fifth to Dean Jordan, John Underwood and Lucky Obi. He wreaked revenge in the return match, beating them all, and has now captured eight Player of the Match awards out of the last nine matches played and has also had five matches playing up in the top division, winning a few, and is much closer be being ready for another full crack in the top sphere.
And this may well come about next season as the Sparks’ latest fixture was against their closest rivals for the runners-up spot behind the dominant Unicorn II, Knighton Park IV, who did themselves no favours in only having two players with Electricity winning 7-3. Pettitt won his two played, Russ Pettitt and Sam Radenhurst supporting with one apiece, while Rayan Kotecha won two singles for KP and combined with Shirley Pickering for the doubles.
Meantime at the top of Division Two Unicorn maintained their dominance with an 8-2 victory over Blaby & Whetstone II when John Genovese kept just ahead of Adam Pettitt in the averages with a maximum, finding ample support from Joe Kirkup also undefeated. Jianglong Guo supplied the other singles, the first two winning the doubles.
Regent Sports still have a decent chance of the runners-up spot and just managed to secure full points against Knighton Park V despite another good full house from Lucky Obi. Regent proved a little deeper in depth with Martin Bolton and Richard Anderson gaining two each, Kevin Sanderson a crucial one, then Bolton and Anderson won the doubles in three straight.
Division One is looking somewhat fragmented with neither of the top two teams recording matches last week as the fixtures begin to pile up. Electricity firsts beat their own second team 9-1 to join defending champions, Unicorn, on the same points but having played three matches more. The Spark’s seconds had only father and son, Steve and Harry White, available with Steve beating Mat Hobday, while David Grundy and Andy Lebutt both won their two for the first team.
Ajax Wolvey swamped Holwell Sports 10-0 and had Aidan Walsh, Jon Williams and Mick Allsopp in full flight, but it looks as though fourth place is probably their highest hope.
Top individual performance of the week came in Division Five when Ketan Patel won all three for Abbots Road IV against Blaby & Whetstone III in a 7-3 defeat. Blaby are battling for promotion and the averages of the three opponents, Alan Wiilson, Jack Angrave and Tom Phips, were all well higher than Patel’s which makes the full house especially good.
There have been seventeen drawn matches already in Division Three and about the same number of those finishing 6-4 that relied on the doubles for the win in a really tight division. Two more draws this week.
It was 5-5 when Leicester Taxes faced Nomads II thanks to yet another maximum from Bruce Johnson who has saved the day for Taxes on numerous occasions, with one from Phil Hodgson and the doubles. For Nomads Chris Weston and Steve Andrews both took two while Trevor Hawkins won one and every single set went according to gradings.
Four players won two in the Knighton Park VII v Electricity IV 5-5 clash, two on each side. Tracey Smith and Martin Pember for KP, Sheriff Makhani and Chris Woodward for the Sparks with the crucial singles going to Simon Aldis (KP) when he defeated Dave Greasley. The latter, with Woodward, clinched the doubles for the deserved share.