PREMIER ROUND-UP WEEK 19
TITANS TRIO TITLE TRIUMPH
Having recovered from a 1-3 deficit to record a 7-3 victory (Nick Howard 3, Craig Brown 2, Ricky Taiwo 2) against club-mates Spinners last week in their remaining outstanding match, Milton Keynes Titans followed up with the draw they needed against closest rivals Leighton Buzzard Generations in order to retain their title with a whole fortnight to spare.
The Generations outfit sent a strong side to Milton Keynes for the big match with star player Ming Fuk Liu well supported by Tim Cheek and Alex DuNoyer. Ming, playing his 7th match, took his regulation hat-trick, and with the doubles going his way too as usual, the Titans couldn't afford much of a slip up elsewhere. In the event they didn't drop another set until the last when Craig let slip a 2-game lead over Alex. Perhaps, in retrospect, it was fitting that Titan new-boy Ricky, in his first season as replacement for the mercurial Guy Sparrow, got the all-important 5th point of the night with a pragmatic win over fellow defender Tim. Many congratulation Titans!
At the other end of the table it has been a bad week for already relegated Open University Primes and MK Topspin, with just a single point won between them. This came from Primes' Ning He with his opening set win over Greenleys Glory skipper Jacob Midson. The other sets went to the Glory boys with hat-tricks from the two Ian's, Brown and Mead. James Zeng and Andy Tan also played for Primes.
MK Topspin fared even worse when suffering their 7th blackwash of the season after running into the in-form Greenleys Monarchs trio of Tomek Nowakowski, Martin Hall and David Beddall. This was Tomek's first MK match since winning the League's coveted Championship Singles title for 2025 just 10 days earlier, beating Nick Howard in the final. Russell Penn, Jit Pitamber and Mervyn Kelly played for Topspin.
The remaining match pitched MK Spinners against Greenleys Warriors with the 2-man Warriors side triumphing 6-4, losing just the first set of the night when Alan Cherry beat Adrian Piotrowski deuce in the 5th. Four of the other sets went the full distance too in a closely fought match. Darren Ward was the other Warrior player with Jecu Aurelian and Gary Jones making up the Spinners team.
Only a mere 10 points separate the 4 mid-table teams, so there is all to play for in the remaining fortnight of the season.
Player of the week : Ming Fuk Liu