Tuesday 15 December 2009

Thirds @ Edin Sports Club 5's(Thurs, Nov 10,'09)

Seed 5 - Mark Dutton v Jimmy (James Gill)
Mark played in the most entertaining match and despite dropping a game (and bringing shame on the whole team - see other results below), came through 3-1 in the end. Against a hard hitting opponent, Mark was able to use his superior skill, the corkscrew serve working its magic. There was even a mid-rally dive for old times sake. The highlight though had to be the end of the second game for Mark to go 2-0 up. On one of the rare occasions Mark mis-hit the ball, he effectively pinned himself to the side wall in trying to avoid it coming back and hitting him. Had his opponent stepped across, a stroke to him would have surely been awarded, but all of this happened too quickly for him to react. Oh how Christy and I laughed.

Seed 4 - Christy Looby v Nicky (Nick Waterman)
Unfortunately I did not see any of this match (being played at the same time as mine), but it was over relatively quickly. Christy was hitting the ball very cleanly in the warm-up (a point made by ESC's no.1) against his (much) younger opponent and no doubt took advantage of the fact that boasts seemed to come off the front wall at quite acute angles…? (or did I imagine this?). Ed: Yes you imagined this ;-) However it was expensive night for Christy, first he broke the match ball, then he broke a string and finally he broke his spare racket at 7-8 down in the third. Which was motivation to win the third quickly, before he broke something on a borrowed racket in a fourth or fifth ;-)

Seed 3 - Dougie Brown v Callum MacKenzie
Dougie was a level above his opponent in this match, winning comfortably in three - 3-0. This was evidenced when I only caught half of the first game, told Dougie what he might think about doing differently and was kindly told to go away.

Seed 2 - Patrick Langley v Tony (Tony Newell)
After a nervous start, Patrick won two relatively close games before winning a quick third to take the match 3-0.

Seed 1 - Pete Cockburn v Tony Newell
This is as well as I have seen Pete play all season, looking comfortable at all times. His opponent had speed and fitness on his side, but to no avail - Pete coming through 3-0.

The food afterwards - pasta bolognaise and salad, was terrific as ever at the Sports Club, whilst talk centered around Tiger Woods and how we would have done things differently in his position (so to speak).

Another great win for the Grange thirds 5-0 in matches, 20-1 in points - one more win this season for an unbeaten first half! Man of the match?? - Mark Dutton for sheer entertainment value alone. Match report: Patrick

2 comments:

Pete said...

The last tie to make it unbeaten into the break could be a tough one! Word on the street is Inveresk will be bringing their strongest team to St Georges on thursday. Think we went down to them twice last season - lots to play for!!!

al said...

Well we did it. 18-8 against Inveresk tonight. Stokesy is preparing the full report, so expect poetry.