Premier Division
A 2-man Greenleys Kings triumphed against a lack lustre MK Kingpins side. The Nick Howard/Guy Sparrow duo had become so adept at winning 6 sets between them during their exciting exploits at the back end of last season that this result was always on the cards. The set that got away from them came early when Craig Brown beat Guy in straight games. The only one to go the distance was Guy’s 12-10 in the decider thriller against Dave Allison, this after Guy had squandered 5 match points in the 4th game. Mark Purcell completed the Kingpins line-up and I’m sure that elusive first win over a Premier player is not far away for him now.
Greenleys Warriors visited the champions den and came away with a worthy share of the spoils. A brace each for Ricky Taiwo and Colin Huang plus a single from Ollie Horswell was a fine performance against an MK Spinners trio of Alan Cherry, Gary Jones and stand-in Julie Snowdon. Usual maximum from Alan was supplemented by one from Gary and the doubles between them.
The final match finished all square as well, with Greenleys Monarchs halting the 100% winning record of MK Sasaki. All credit to Martin Hall, a revelation this season. for 2 more fine victories, coming from behind to beat both Jamie Hendy and James George. Tomek Nowakowski also had a great match with wins over the same pair. Off day for Dave Tiplady though, with just a single win. Another hat-trick for new Sasaki star man Matt Haynes, early days but it’s hard to see anyone in this League being good enough to beat him.
Player of the week is Nick Howard.
Division 1
What a week it’s been for the Howard clan. First, on Monday Premier ace Nick bagged a treble against Kingpins (no surprise there), then on Tuesday Mike stunned MK Pumas with a hat-trick of his own, taking out Julie Snowdon, Chris Belton and Keith Carrington, in Newport Pagnell Vanatge’s 4-6 defeat to the Division 1 favourites. Sue Lewis and Tony Ardis kept up their good doubles record but failed to win a singles set between them, though Tony took Keith to deuce in the 5th in a match where 6 sets went the distance.
The formidable Pitamber brothers were in tandem for the first time this season in MK Powers 6-4 win over MK Phoenix. While Top 8 finalist Minesh wasn’t at his best with only one win, Jiten was firing on all cylinders to record a great maximum. It was a classic case of the ‘If one don’t get yer the other one will’ syndrome. But it was left to skipper Pete Tillotson to nail the victory in the final set by beating Gerald Ridgway, winless on the night, over 5 games. Alan Bolding and Terry Lau had won all the Phoenix sets between them. That’s 3 wins on the trot for Powers who rocket into 2nd place, their highest in this Division for 4 years, 6 points behind Topspin.
My MK Topspin side still have the Midas touch, for now anyway, after an 8-2 victory over promoted Greenleys Glory. Russell Penn hit his first hat-trick of the season to join me on a maximum, though I got lucky against Ian Brown, who missed a sitter at 7-7 in the 5th when the impetus was with him. But Mervyn Kelly only took a brace, his usually sound attack thwarted in a web of Christine Scaysbrook’s making before she delivered the killer blows with her ferocious forehand. John Stamp completed the Glory line-up. Topspin’s still waiting for that elusive first doubles win though.
Woburn Sands Data sit bottom of the table, trailing 8th placed Glory by 9 points already at this stage. This week they went down to 9-1 to Greenleys Eagles with James Molloy saving the whitewash in the final set with victory over Geoff Callaway. Hat-ticks here for Barry Bishop and seasonal debutant Iain Lindsay, blanks for Dave McGarragh and Rob McPheat.
Player of the week is Mike Howard.