NATIONAL CADET LEAGUE 18 OCTOBER 2009

The first round of National Cadet League matches was held at Stowupland on Sunday 11 October 2008, Sundays being the scheduled dates in the ETTA Calendar.

Twelve teams again entered this season thus keeping two divisions of six teams. The format of both divisions was matches of six games so each team played all the other teams in their Division on the day. Chelmsford had a team in each Division. All matches were played on two tables.

In their first match the Chelmsford A team played Stowmarket A (incidentally they played Stowmarket A first last season as well) and shared the opening two matches. James Denyer (a Clacton League player and son of Gill Locke) made short work of Jack Samson 5, 4, 5 whilst Chris Denyer lost 5, 7, -9, 6 to Lucy Zhu. After this the next four matches were won 3-0, Jamie Dowsett scoring twice for an opening 5-1 win.

In the next match against Wensum Chris again lost his opening match 3-1 to Liam Pye who later on lost 3-1 to James after taking the opening set. Chris beat Finn Brocklesby 3-0 taking one more point to do so than Jamie, but Jamie lost the last match to Sol Goss 3-1, so a 4-2 team win was the result.

The scoreline in the next match against Bury St. Edmunds was the same, but this was their toughest match so far. The opening two matches were shared for the third time. Chris lost to the highest ranked player in the room, Rhys Davies, 7, 1, 5 whilst James quickly beat Calum Wilkinson 7, 6, 4. Jamie had a marathon match against the opponents number three Harvey Dinkele, eventually coming through to win -10, 9, 10, -5, 3. Meanwhile James played Rhys on the other table, although ranked 227 points and 250 places above him after three close sets James raced away with the fourth dropping only one point to win 9, -8, 11, 1. Harvey was involved in another marathon with Chris, this time coming through to win in the fifth after Chris had opened up a 2-1 lead but lost the last two sets both to 9. Jamie stayed unbeaten in this match when defeating Calum 3-0 for the team win.

The next match was against the leaders NETTS A. James’s first match was against Patrick Gilbert, ranked 75 places above him. After losing the first set to deuce, James only lost ten points in the next three sets for a 3-1 win. Subsequently James had a much closer match against Luke Tarrant, ranked 245 places above him, narrowly winning 11, 9, 9. Chris took a set off Ben Page but then neither Chris nor Jamie could make an impact on the NETTS players so a 2-4 defeat resulted.

The last match of the day was against Wymondham and for the first time both opening matches were won. Chris had an excellent opening win defeating Tom Fox, ranked 80 places above him, 8, -8, 6, 6 and later on James did the same 3-1 James had started with a 3-0 win over Mark Waity and Chris secured the team win by beating Daniel Howes 5, 5, 6. Jamie had lost easily to Daniel 3-0 but fought valiantly against Mark in the last match of the day, finally losing 12, 8, -10, -3, 9 for another 4-2 win and second place in the Table.

An excellent day for James with ten wins out of ten, Chris 4 out of 10 and Jamie 5 out of 10.

The B Team consisted of the three girls, Sarah Austin, Rebecca Denyer and Emily Knight. Their first match was against Stowmarket B who only had two players as their third player was playing up for their A Team against our A team. Rebecca took four sets to defeat Matthew Ager but the other matches were all won 3-0 for an opening 6-0 win.

Against Rowhedge, Rebecca after winning the first set against Lajos Zsisky 13-11, lost the next three 4, 4, 5. whilst on the other table Sarah had a comfortable 6, 2, 3 win over Ben Jackson, Gary Jackson’s son. Emily commenced her Chelmsford representative career with a 9, 5, 5 win over Jane Li and won the match with a 2, 6, 8 win over Ben. Meanwhile Sarah and Rebecca had been involved in two five set marathons. Sarah just got home against Lajos -8, 3, 8, -10, 9 whilst in the following match Rebecca, who had fought back from two sets down to square the match, finally succumbed 2, 4, -8, -8, 4 to Jane.

Against NETTS B Rebecca narrowly lost the opening game to Tom Brown 10, 10, 8 but then the next five against Joe Nourse, Sam Johnson and Tom were won, only Rebecca’s match with Sam requiring a fourth set.

Their fourth match was against a Rougham team of Will Hall, William Woods and Max Boulter who had not yet dropped a point. Sarah Austin had a great 12, -10, 7, 9 win over Will, the fourth highest ranked player in the room, but all the other matches were lost 3-0.

The last match was against Framlingham Earl. Here again Rebecca lost the opening match to Rhiannon Evans 4, 4, 9 but Sarah, Emily and Rebecca won the next five for a final 5-1 win. Emily had the toughest of the five matches being the last to finish after a -7, 7, 8, -8, 1 win over George Hewkin. The Chelmsford team finished second to Rougham  whose only point dropped was the one to Sarah.

It is likely that Rougham will be promoted to Division 1 and thus this round of matches has been used as an assessment of the strengths of the various teams. If this proves to be the case then only the next three rounds of matches will determine the final Table positions of the two Divisions.

The next round of matches will be on Sunday 22 November at Stowupland.

 

Arthur C. Clark

Junior Match Secretary