Neston2 vs Pinewood1
Match Report by MARK SIMPSONThe line-up for Neston's first pair was the ever-reliable Jason and Lloyd, and the second pair featured the telepathic tag team of Ben and myself, both of us having plenty of doubles battles under our belts.
Ben and I kicked off against a Pinewood junior and their top lady. After losing the first set 6-3, Ben decided to step up his game—throwing on his Nike Air trainers and leaping higher than a gazelle to smother the net and put pressure on Pinewood. He followed that with some uncharacteristically slow serves to the lady's backhand and a handful of lobs, and we started to get a grip on the match. Sadly for us, we went on to lose the second set in a tie-break, so no points for our efforts, despite our cheeky antics.
Since our match finished fairly quickly, we got to watch the final half-hour of Jason and Lloyd’s first encounter. What an epic! Pinewood’s number one player played a laid-back style that caught us all by surprise—pulling out worldie shots left, right, and centre. But doubles has 2 players and after losing the first set 6-2, Jason and Lloyd did everything they could to keep the match alive by missing out the number 1 guy— they narrowly lost in a 3rd set tie break 15-13 after Jason had to put a challenger in her place for questioning one of his calls.
In the next round, Ben and I were over the moon just to get a game—anything to avoid getting double bageled! Ben even said that this guy was the best player he’d ever faced, and later on, he googled him to discover he was a professional tennis player and artist from the USA.
Meanwhile, Jason and Lloyd took the second pair apart in the first set, smashing them 6-0. They then hit a bit of wobble, losing a bit of rhythm, but still managed to clinch the second set 7-5.
All in all, a fantastic night had by everyone—well, almost everyone. Ben was pretty gutted he didn't manage to get an autograph from the tennis pro!
Final Score 8 - 16
From left: Jason Long (C), Mark Simpson, Ben Holroyd, Lloyd Murphy
