Mixed Fortunes against Defence Academy

In Division 1 of the Oxfordshire League, Henley 1sts overwhelmed Defence Academy 1sts who seem set for demotion. At the other end of the League, it was a different story as the Defence 4th team beat Henley 4ths in Division 8.

Henley first team thrashed bottom of the league Defence Academy from Shrivenham 5/0 (19/2). With the exception of Simon Street, who was recovering from illness, all the Henley players won 3/0 easily.

At first string, Rick Weatherall out classed Wiltshire’s Nigel Rowe 3/0.

Luke Power beat Adam Oakley 3/0 at second string, with Oakley not prepared to get stuck in.

Simon Street struggled to contain Dave Ridgway at three, but managed to win the deciding game quite comfortably to win 3/2.

Nyall Driscoll thrashed Ant Dennington at fourth string, dropping just 5 points to also win 3/0.

Equally as one sided was Adrian Richmond’s demolition of Mike Hyland at fifth string.

Next week Henley face league leaders Thame in a much tougher contest.

This week saw Henley 2nds travel to Hithercroft with perhaps their strongest team of the season. Unfortunately Hithercroft had inside knowledge and had recruited Ryan Thompson, a former professional player, to supplement an already strong team.

At 1 Damon Chase rallied hard but Thompson came out on top winning 3-0.

At two Stefan Stanton was too strong and skilful for the wily Kevin Turnell, winning 3- 0 .

At three Paul Sayers had a close fought match, eventually losing 2-3 to the deft touch of Mark Shand, with Sayer’s unorthodox game being unsufficient to overcome Shand’s skill.

James Knight played Carey Sayer at four, with the superior fitness and retrieving ability of Knight taking him through to a 3-2 victory.

The match was well poised at 2 rubbers each when Nigel Richardson for Henley took to the court against Alan Steptoe at 5. Long rally after long rally followed as similar players went head to head, with Alan eventually taking the rubber when a controversial “no let” was called, securing the match for Hithercroft with a 3-2 win.

Henley 9 points Hithercroft 15 points.

Henley 3rds travelled to Chipping Norton with a supposedly strong team but lost 4 games to 1.

At 1st string a below par Derek Oswald struggled to find consistency and tinnned far too many against his more consistent opponent Royston Williams losing 9/0, 6/9, 9/7, 9/2.

Steve Berger had an equally bad evening and despite a rally in the second game was overwhelmed by Richard Wilkins 9/3, 3/9, 9/7, 9/4.

Roger Booker had the only win of the evening against Henrique Williams. Having just taken the first game Booker was on the backfoot for the next two, but some timely advice from the gallery enabled him to coast home 7/9,9/2, 9/5, 1/9, 6/9.

Jill Campion, after a heavy night at the RAC club the previous evening could not quite come to terms with Marc Coombes and despite some of her skilful and deft touches, lost 9/5, 10/8, 9/2.

Chris Pullen played the youngster Tom Napier and despite going 2/1 up could not maintain the pressure with Pullen losing 6/9, 9/2, 2/9, 9/2, 9/1.

Henley 7 points Chipping Norton 18 points.

Henley 4ths, flush from their strong victory last week, hosted top-of-the table Defence Academy.

At 1st string, Simon Stone was on a winning streak of 14 matches and came up against Paul James. Stone was looking good to take the match to a deciding game, leading 8/2 in the fourth and coming back strongly from 1 game to 2 down, when he felt a nasty twinge in his Achilles. Having snapped one in the past, he sensibly decided to call it a day and conceded the match.

At 2nd string, Paul Ireland was also was in position to takes his match to a deciding game, before losing out 8/10 in a very close fourth – his opponent Geoff Ward taking the match by 3 games to 1.

At 3rd string, James Gildersleve looked suitably refreshed after a spot of mountain-top skiing in Canada last week, and seemed on course to take the second game of his match to level up the scores. But 3 quick points from his opponent, the experienced and wily Graham Vizor, saw him lose that vital second game and Vizor quickly wrapped up the match in the third.

At 4th string, Duncan Nightingale was blown away by the pace of Matt Elwick in the first game of their match, but competed better in the next two. He was the first to reach six points in both games, but then frustratingly saw Elwick come back each time – eventually running out a comfortable winner by 3 games to 0.

At 5th string, Henley Junior Freddie Borg pushed his opponent, Matt Carter hard and took a game off him before going down 3 games to 1. But another promising performance for Borg in only his second outing for the senior teams.

All-in-all, a frustrating night for the 4ths, who will now have a head-to-head with Abingdon in their final match of the season to see who avoids the wooden spoon in Division 8!

The Oxfordshire League Tables can be seen here.