Press Report

The first weekend of the County Championships season was preceded by a Nightmare week for the Junior Committee as the four girls comprising our first and second teams notified us of their unavailability due to injuries and other problems. Eventually we obtained the services of three of our very young fringe players, none of whom had ever played for the County in any official matches, even for the fourth team. Yet here they were volunteering to play in the rarefied atmosphere of the Junior Premier Division, no less !. The valiant trio were Sara Akata, who has just turned 12, Daisy Hughes (13) and Claire Austin (13), the first two from the Fellows Cranleigh Club and Claire from the Chelmsford League. They did remarkably well in the circumstances, even though they were not able to pick up any wins, hardly surprising as they had to play the girls ranked nationally numbers 6, 13, 34, 48, 54 and 67.

Despite starting at 0-4 down in effect against a strong Derbyshire side our boys pulled off a very creditable 5-5 draw with Vytas Rybakas coming right back to his best form with victories over Daniel Lowe (ranked 29 nationally) and Mark Naylor (the England no. 63) while Ashley Stokes also won both of his matches, beating Lowe 11-9 in the fifth game and Shaun Cullen (ranked no. 42) in straight games. Emran Hussain contributed one win against Naylor but just failed to secure a miraculous victory when he played Shaun Cullen.

On the second day we still lacked the services of our England no. one ranked Sarra Wang, who is regrettably injured, but we had Holly Stubbings back with us. We had two matches to play, against Devonshire and Hampshire and our new girl in the team was Claire Austin. Devonshire fielded the outstanding Richard Marshall as their number one. He is ranked number fourteen in the country so he is a formidable opponent. Early victories for Ashley over Chris Smith (ranked no. 44) and Emran over Simon Poyner (not currently ranked, although I remember him as a very promising 12 year-old a few years ago) put us in a strong position. Poyner later lost to Vytas, but only after a very close match, further evidence of how well Emran played to beat him. Claire duly lost to Laura McCleod, but her attitude was first-class and she did not seem to be at all fazed by the exalted company she was in. She even had the temerity to win the third game 16-14 !. Vytas then played Richard and this was a truly great contest with the younger Devon lad getting home by scores of 8-11, 11-9, 11-6, 9-11, 12-10. The score was now 2-2. Holly stepped into defeat Vicky Smith easily and Emran then played probably his best match of the weekend by beating Chris Smith 14-12, 8-11, 9-11, 11-1, 13-11. This was turning point and we led 4-2, and although Claire was mowed down by Vicky we won the last three matches to record a 7-3 win. One of these last three matches saw Ashley put up his best performance of the two days by ousting Richard Marshall by scores of 13-15, 11-13, 11-8, 11-7, 11-9. Holly and Vytas won the other two matches.

Our last match was against Hampshire, the promoted side. They look like ending up Champions with a very strong side including Matthew Ware - at no. 1, the highest ranked boy present and Hannah Hicks - at no. 13, the second highest ranked girl. Their no. two boy Garth Kinlocke (ranked no. 32) is also a formidable player. This team had already beaten Yorkshre and Lincolnshire by scores of 9-1, and they now proceeded to do the same to us. However, our team fought valiantly and three of our defeats were by 3-2 margins. First Holly lost to Becky House 11-6, 4-11, 13-15. 11-8, 8-11, a bit surprising this, as Holly is the higher ranked player, Vytas did not play as well as he had been playing earlier, because he succumbed 11-9, 9-11, 8-11. 11-6, 6-11 to David McBeath. Emran probably put up our best performance (althoguh in some ways also the most disappointing) in defeat as he led 2-0 before losing the last three games and succumbing 11-8, 1`3-11. 11-13, 3-11, 4-11 to Garth Kinlocke. Ashley was Essex's sole winner with a 3-0 success against Garth Kinlocke.

The League Table is as follows -

P W D L F A Points

HANTS 3 3 0 0 27 3 6

DERBYSHIRE 3 2 1 0 20 10 5

LINCS 3 2 0 1 13 17 4

ESSEX 3 1 1 1 13 17 3

DEVONSHIRE 3 1 0 2 14 16 2

SOUTH YORKSHIRE 3 1 0 2 13 17 2

YORKSHIRE 3 1 0 2 11 19 2

BUCKS 3 0 0 3 9 21 0

Individual Performances of the Essex players were -

P W L Percentage

Ashley Stokes 6 5 1 83 %

Vytas Rybakas 6 3 3 50 %

Emran Hussain 6 3 3 50 %

Holly Stubbings 4 2 2 50 %

Sara Akata 2 0 2 0 %

Daisy Hughes 2 0 2 0 %

Claire Austin 2 0 2 0 %