PREMIER ROUND-UP WEEK 17
CLOSE CALLS ALL ROUND
Just the 3 matches once again in the week, all closely fought ones though in what proved to be excellent contests.
Greenleys Glory reversed the 8-2 result last time they met club-mates Warriors thanks to sparkling hat-tricks by Ian Mead and a 'first of the season' from Saish Prabhu with Scott Dixon chipping in with one win. However, 4 of the Glory wins went the distance with 3 of them decided by mere 2-point margins in the 5th game for the closest finishes possible! Darren Ward and Ameya Phatak picked up the consolation sets for Warriors with Shrishlal Basant Rai remaining winless.
The other matches ended 6-4 thanks to more tight finishes, none more so than for Leighton Buzzard Generations' trip to Greenleys Monarchs where the visitors were never ahead until the penultimate set when Alex Du Noyer grabbed his only success of the night at the expense of Dave Beddall, leaving unbeaten star-man Ming Fuk Liu to complete his customary hat-trick with a final set victory over Martin Hall. Earlier, Martin had also lost to Hakan Karaagac.
The final match of the week was between the bottom two teams Open University Primes and MK Topspin, both promoted last season and both going back to Div 1 again next term. The Topspinners shot into a 4-1 lead only for Primes to come storming back to 4-4 before Topspin managed to close the match out, recovering to take the last 2 encounters. Half the sets went to 5-games too, demonstrating the closeness of the sides. Hero of the hour was Topspin's Jit Pitamber with a hard won treble (and a share in a rare doubles win). Team-mates Mal Hussain and Mervyn Kelly logged a win a-piece, Mervyn responsible for the last gasp victory in the final set of the night against Patrick Wong, all of whose sets went the distance. For the Primes, Patrick beat Mal, James Zeng beat Mervyn and Andy Tan beat them both.
The postponed match this week was an MK derby between Spinners and Titans. While the mighty Titans are out of sight as runaway leaders, Spinners and Leighton Buzzard Generations are competing closely for the runners-up spot and they are due to clash next week in what could prove a vital match in deciding final positions in the table.
Player of the week : Saish Prabhu