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BVTTC News Release |
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A FRIENDLY ENCOUNTER The
new season opened with a series of internal club friendlies which, maybe
surprisingly, all followed the form book. Perhaps the selectors have got
the teams about right? Eight teams battled it out in friendly matches as
a warm-up to the season which commences 18th September. And
it gave some with new line-ups the opportunity to see how they perform
as a team before the official league matches begin.
'A'
played 'B', 'C' played 'D',
'E' played 'F' and 'G' played 'J' .
it's fair to say that in each of the four matches, the higher
ranked team proved to be the stronger with convincing wins over their
opposing club mates. Nevertheless,
there were some very close games that could have gone either way. 'A' v 'B' Regular
A Team members Waseem Qureshi and Neil Gooday were joined by Adrian Pitt
playing up from the B team in the absence of Peter Barrett. Waseem
featured in two 5 set thrillers against Julie Vansertima and Al Piper
and Neil had his own 5 set thriller to overcome sister-in-law Julie. But
despite this the two took all 6 of their singles. By contrast Adrian,
perhaps feeling some sympathy for his team mates, dropped all 3 of his
singles. Each time he appeared
to start well winning his first game but just couldn't maintain the
pressure needed to win overall.
This gave a fine win to Ray Lawrence who also came close for the B Team
in his other two singles to give some consolation to the B Team in the
7:3 victory. 'C' v 'D' In
the all 3rd Division clash between the 'C' and 'D' teams,
Mike Johnston aided by Duncan Elloy and Ryan Pitt upstaged Frank Neill,
Steve Back and Stuart Skippings with an 8-2 victory. Stuart surprisingly
beat Mike 3-1 and Frank beat Ryan 3-0, although this was closer than the
scoreline suggests, and only just gave into Duncan at 11:9 in the 5th
end. The D Team will clearly have to pull something out of the hat if
they are to survive in 3.
'E' v 'F' Div
4's 'E' team of Graham Turner, Bradley Hudgell and Laura Pyman met Div
5's 'F' team of Haydn Upson, Rykki Vansertima and Steve Clift. This
match gave a chance for five of our up and coming juniors to demonstrate
their progress and for Laura and Bradley to test out their selection for
the higher division. It also gave a gentle outing for one 'old has been'
in the form of our Chairman!
The match ended 9-1 in favour of the 'E' team who looked
impressive. A fine win by Rykki over Laura being the only success for
the 'F' team. But there were other glimpses. Both Steve and Rykki took
games from Graham and laura was made to fight all the way to 11:9 in the
5th to overcome Haydn. And after being 2:0 up Laura and Bradley had to
pull out all the stops to take the 5th end 13:11 in a pulsating doubles
against Haydn & Rykki.
'G' v 'J' The
remaining match was between our 'G' team who will feature in Div 5
against our 'J' team of Div 6. The
'G' team of Mike Robinson, Colin Gooday and Phil Twite ran out eventual
winners over the '4-man' team of Diane Pitt, Ian Austin, Jacqueline
Smith and newcomer Andrew Lager. The
final score being 9-1. Perhaps most encouraging here was how well Phil
played as he steps up to Div 5. However, I do believe that this new
line-up in the 'J' team will do well in the league once they have got a
few more matches under their belt. What was particularly pleasing to see as a mere spectator was the sheer determination etched on each of the players faces and the will to win - even though these were just friendly matches. If that is an indication of the hunger felt, then we should all do OK this season!
H v K The last warm up match was most definitely the closest. A hard fought draw between two Div 6 sides. Ron Arthur, Les Webb and Matthew Skeoch for the H Team (Matthew playing up from the L Team) and Eric Clift, Andrew Orme and Alex Stone for the K Team. And the big surprise here was the performances of the junior players. Alex Stone, who will be appearing in Div 6 for the first time this season, took all 3 singles. Including an excellent win over hard hitting Ron. And Matthew showed just how much he has improved taking 2 singles including Eric's scalp!
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