Thursday 9 December 2010

HWU2 "home" v GRG4 Wed 8th December 2010.

This fixture had been rearranged to Arboretum as HWU's courts had been booked for a function, but the home advantage didn’t quite prove enough for the 4ths to overcome a good Heriot Watt 2 side.

First up was Mark Dutton at No 1 against the good young player Nick Spath. Mark didn't make a very convincing start with Nick adjusting to the cold courts much more effectively to comfortably take the first 1-9. The second was a different story with Mark dominating to an 8-4 lead but being unable to convert three game points to let Nick sneak it at the death. The third game saw Nick well on top to run to a 1-8 lead before Mark dug in well to bring it back to 4-8. Then commenced a very entertaining struggle to the death that saw Mark save nine match points (didn't believe it myself …but I have the scoresheet in front of me as I type this) and lose quite a bit of knee and elbow skin in aerobatics before Nick finally got the break he needed to close it out 4-9. A 0-3 loss for Mark.

Next up was Alan Wallace at No3 against the very speedy Alistair Ross. It was a high quality match with the first two games close at 5-9 and 9-10 to Alistair. The key being Alistair's constant ability to retrieve nearly everything Alan did through his speed round the court. Alan picked up the next 9-7 but was unable to repeat the perfomance in the last 6-9 game to run out a 1-3 loss.

Will Henderson played very well at No2 to give Bendan Forrester little chance to get a look in on the night. Brendan began to mount something a recovery from Will's initial 9-1 9-3 victories to go blow for blow to 4-4 in the third game but Will put his foot down again to take it 9-4 for a good 3-0 win.

An entertaining match at no5 saw Andy Whitelaw take on the hard hitting Umair Saeed. Umair's pace and accuracy saw him take the first 4-9 but Andy found his touch in the second and began weighting his drops and boasts beautifully in the cold conditions to more often than not leave Umair at a stretch to retrieve anything and he took the game 9-4. The third game could have gone either way after Andy raced to a 7-0 lead that Umair pegged back but it was eventually Andy's at 10-8. The final game saw Andy completely dominate through the well-weighted slow game that frustrated Umair's preference for pace. He took it 9-3 for a very good 1-3 victory.

With things evenly balanced, John Loftus went on for the no4 decider against Colin Gray. Both players afterwards described the match as being somewhat scrappy and a a few too many mistakes on both sides. Some good sessions of play from time to time but overall the player's own description was a good summary. Colin took the first 4-9 and John returned the favour playing his best squash of the night for 9-7 in the second. John couldn't repeat that though and Colin was the one to get his game under better control to run out the last two fairly comfortably 3-9 and 2-9. A 1-3 loss for John.

Overall a 10-15 loss (incl ref points) for the Grange 4ths to continue our too long streak of gaining decent points but not being able to get the match.

A final point to note is the very good performance of Franco's who managed to get 15 pizzas to the Grange in time for the 1sts, 4ths and 5ths all to be fed. Good work.

Mark Dutton

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