Hannah Pitt has not had an easy time in her second season in division one of the Braintree Table Tennis League, with only two wins in her first 23 sets.
But she found her form when she turned out twice in three days and racked up three wins in the two matches.
Her first outing was as a reserve for Netts A against Rayne C, where she beat both Peter Hance and Richard Jennings.
She reverted to her normal C team place two days later and scored an even more impressive win over Jon Hill, a player with an average just a fraction under 50 per cent. It was a close-run thing before Pitt eventually triumphed 3-2 (11-6, 8-11, 7-11, 11-9, 15-13).
Pitt’s defeat by Keith Martin was the only set Netts A dropped while her win over Hill was the only set won by the C team against Rayne B.
Top team Liberal A had a predictable 10-0 win over bottom team Rayne D to increase their lead over Rayne A, who beat Liberal B 7-3.
Black Notley A’s results against Netts B have gradually getting better. They lost 8-2 to them first time round, then 6-4 and this time they held them to a draw.
After winning all but two of their first 11 matches in division two, Rayne E have lost the last four. Their latest conquerors were their own F team, who beat them 6-4.
Keith Flowers and Dave Marsh won twice each for the F team, but the major surprise was that Alastair Brown did too. With only four wins behind him all season, few could have expected him to register victories over both Nick Hasler and Richard Whiteside.
That enabled Notley B, who beat their own C team 7-3, to pull further away at the top.
Netts E increased their own D team’s worries at the foot of the table by beating them 7-3, the dual spearhead of Fred Evans and Joe Meleschko as usual doing the damage, while a two-person Felsted RBL A beat Nomads 6-4.
Unusually it was not Kevin Saunders who notched up Nomads’ only win, but Lorraine Burgess with a creditable victory over Richard Upson.
Felsted’s C team in division three faced Rayne H, the team that took five points off them in the first match of the season, and this time they dispatched them 9-1. They fielded an entirely different team from the first match but again it was Peter Taylor, who won his three sets on the first occasion, who put a dent in their record with an excellent win over Ian Butler.
In a rearranged match, Felsted also beat Notley E by the same score.
Notley F kept up their challenge for the runners-up spot by beating Rayne J 10-0 while Notley G beat Netts F, with Alan Billing and Max King unbeaten.