The first three results through from Division One of the Leicester and District League have all been 5-5 draws.
A humdinger between Electricity II and Knighton Park’s first team saw the introduction of England ranked Sam Perry into the Sparks team, who will make a tremendous difference if he plays regularly as his maximum against KP indicates.
Perry’s successes included a 3-2 (11-7, 5-11, 9-11, 12-10, 11-9) victory over Chris Rogers to inflict the latter’s first defeat of the campaign, Adam Pettitt supporting with one before Perry and Pettitt took the doubles in five.
For the Park, Rogers won his other two while Jack Rogers did the same and Reza Kiani won one to put his team 5-4 up going into the doubles.
Holwell Sports drew with AW Wolvey when four of the six players recorded two – Martin Brunning and Adam Feargrieve for Holwell, these two also winning the doubles for the share. For Wolvey Gareth Edmunds and Mick Allsopp each took a brace while Paul Calloway supplied the other.
The third draw was somewhat different as Thringstone did it with only two players against Knighton Park II. Trevor Kerry was undefeated, Maurice Newman gaining one, the two of them needing to win the doubles to share the points. James Berry did well to beat Maurice Newman, as did Karen Smith.
It needed a Tim Sheppard maximum for Unicorn to retain top position with a close 6-4 victory over Electricity firsts. Yiji Zhao won two in support and the two of them won the all-important doubles. Andy LeButt was the Spark’s most successful player in winning two.
At the other end of the spectrum Division Five is proving to be an absolutely competitive segment, completely different to how it was last season, with six points separating seven teams at the top, each just one point behind the one above.
Previous leaders, Abbots Road IV, were beaten 6-4 by a cock-a-hoop Winstanley Wizards III who had Ras Kotadia, John Hurst and Steve Burrage all winning two in a great team effort, dropping Abbots to second and elevating themselves up to fourth.
Knighton Park IX take over at the top for the time being after thrashing another Winstanley team, the fifth, 9-1. Paul Ducksbury and Abe Lam both took comfortable maximums while Fares Gabbar grabbed the other two. This Park team came down this season and are keen to get back up.
Third are Knighton Park’s tenth team who had Tony Scarborough back to form and winning three, as did skipper, Mike Smith, with Bill Walmsley handing a supporting two, losing his other in five games against Mike Miles of Fleckney III who combined with Tony Burns for the doubles to make the score 8-2.
The other team up there is Nomads IV who are slipping a bit, drawing 5-5 with Desford Village IV who had Gillian Wisdish in superb, unbeaten, form. Mick Harvey and Mick Loach each won two for Nomads, Derek Butt one.
Three teams are beginning to dominate Division Three, including two from Knighton Park. Their fifth team have Ruben Dehnen back in the fold and he is paving the way nicely having scored another maximum at the expense of Goons II in a 7-3 success that keeps them top. This included an excellent win over Paul Hinson who won his other two. Supporting Dehnen were Chris Parmar-Saville with two and one for Dave Mountain.
Meanwhile the Park’s seventh team were maintaining second position by defeating their own two-man sixth team 8-2 for whom everything went wrong on the night with injury and illness. Amardeep Gudela won his two for the victors, Simon Aldis and Robert Geary one apiece, plus the three given.
Third are Abbots Road II and they easily overcame bottom team, Holwell Sports III, 9-1 when Steve Pratt and Hardik Patel both emerged undefeated while Richard Lee notched two. Good on Holwell, however, as they came in at the eleventh hour to fill an unexpected gap.
Closest match in the division came when Unicorn II just got the better of Nomads by 6-4 when Jacob Sharp notched three for the winners, Jordan Tweed two and one for Justin Ho. Martin Taylor won two for Nomads while Laszlo Kocsis grabbed one and the doubles, just failing to get a share of points.