PREMIER ROUND-UP WEEK 21 (FINAL)
MINESH TO CHAMPS RESCUE
Already crowned champions MK Titans struggled to the narrowest of wins in this final match against a 2-man Greenleys Warriors, who will finish in 5th place. Missing their inspirational leader Nick Howard (on sick leave) for the only time this season, the mighty Titans called up Div 1 reserve Minesh Pitamber, who played a blinder for them to get the champions over the line with a great win over Darren Ward, coming from 2 games down to win in 5. Both Warriors were in fine form though, with Adrian Piotrowski scoring victories over Ricky Taiwo and Minesh before losing to Craig Brown at deuce in the decider. Darren beat Craig here for the first ever time, although there have been many close calls in their past encounters, and the Warriors took the doubles between them.
Not to be outdone by his elder brother, MK Topspin's Jiten Pitamber enjoyed a great week too, this time against League runners-up Leighton Buzzard Generations. Jit posted fine wins over Tim Cheek and Alex Du Noyer, but went down 11-8 in the 5th to Ben Rolfe, making a rare appearance for the Generation team. Unfortunately, this was 7th placed Topspin's only successes on the night with Mal Hussain and Russell Penn remaining winless. Generations still have Warriors to play in the only outstanding match in the division but any result in the match will have no effect on the final placings.
MK Spinners, serial winners in bygone days, had to settle for 3rd spot this time. They did, however, finish in style, following up last week's 9-1 victory with a 10-0 scoreline this time against bottom of the pile Open University Primes. Hat-tricks all round for Alan Cherry, Jecu Aurelian and Gary Jones. Zeros for Primes trio Andy Tan, Patrick Wong and James Zeng. Andy did have the distinction of being one of only 2 players (along with Titan Ricky Taiwo) to play in every match for their own team this season.
Finally, in the Greenleys derby 4th placed Monarchs lost out to 6th placed Glory with the lower placed team posting a strong all-round performance to win 6-4 against opponents forced to field Div 2 reserve Lewis Copp alongside regulars Tomek Nowakowski and Dave Beddall. Tomek took a treble and Dave won the other Monarch set. For Glory, both Saish Prabhu and Ian Mead hit 2 a-piece and secured the doubles between them, with Iain Lindsay one. Monarchs' League Singles champion Tomek has been in terrific form lately, finishing the season in style with 10 wins in a row to go with his recent League Individual Singles title. He could only qualify 3rd, though, in the eligible averages for the cherished 'Top 8' extravaganza later this month. Ahead of him were Ian M, in top spot, and Nick Howard, who also won the most sets (48) this season from his 20 appearances.
Congratulations, again, to Titans for retaining the title with their consistent team of Nick, Craig and Ricky.
And finally many thanks to Nick for his flow of entertaining match reports throughout the season. Always informative, witty and overly modest.
Player of the week : Adrian Piotrowski
Player of the season : Ian Mead