Press Report

The Chelmsford League entered a team in the Essex Junior Inter League this season for the first time in five years and the event was held at BATTS Harlow on Saturday 29 May. Seven teams were originally entered by six Essex Leagues but two teams dropped out a week beforehand and one on the day before leaving four teams, Chelmsford, Southend, Clacton and Colchester to play one another. Matches were played on two tables with four players in each team, the top two ranked players playing one another at singles and doubles on one table and the same format for the third and fourth ranked players on the other table.

Chelmsford’s first match was against Clacton with Scott Dowsett playing Mark Smith who plays for Elmtree Graphics in Division 4. Scott was made to work hard for his win, coming through 7, 9, -8, 9. James Austin then had to play the rapidly improving James Denyer, who had played this season for Chelmsford’s National Cadet League team, losing -9, 6, -9, -9. The doubles was next and Scott and James, who had never before played doubles together, had to work out their left-right combination. The winning score of 9, -7, 10, 9 shows it wasn’t easy. Scott then had James D. to play and was taken the full distance before finally winning game 8 whilst in the next match James A. appeared to have no trouble against Mark winning 5, 6, 4. Meanwhile on the other table Robert Shrimpton and Chris Denyer each won their first singles and the doubles against Daniel Prior and Tom Burton 3-0. Robert then beat Tom 4, 3, 1 and Chris has to remember that the third set is the hardest to win when you have won the first two too easily. 13-11 over Tom following 2 and 0 was similarly repeated against Daniel but this time a fifth set was required for the win. An opening 9-1 win was harder to achieve than the scoreline would appear to indicate.

Chelmsford’s next match was against a Southend team fielding three of their National Junior League side. Scott and James won their opening matches against Leon Smart and Kieran Skeggs 3-0 and 3-1 respectively and the doubles 3-0 after coming back from well down in the first set to win it 12-10. Scott had an easy 3-0 win over Kieran but just when the Chelmsford supporters thought that James might break Leon’s hoodoo over him that hoodoo was to remain. Coming back from 2-0 down to square the match a 5-2 deficit in the fifth set was converted to a 7-5 lead and then a 10-9 match point. Not to be as Leon finally won 13-11. On the other table Robert beat Paul Simms 0, 4, 10 and took the doubles with Chris 3-0 after Chris had lost his singles to Jack Burns 3-0. Robert took four sets to beat Jack and Chris, after coming back from 2 sets down to Paul lost the last four points from 7-7. However the 7-3 win meant that the team only needed a draw against the Colchester team who had already lost to Clacton and Southend to take the title.

In the opening match Scott found himself 2-1 down to Andy Harvey before finally scraping through 11-8 in the fifth. By the match’s halfway stage the title was already secured and in fact the last nine matches were all won 3-0, Tom Lewis, Lajos Zsisku and Alice Rudge, the only girl playing, were Colchester’s other three players.

Scott Dowsett 6 out of 6, James Austin 4 out of 6, Robert Shrimpton 6 out of 6 and Chris Denyer 4 out of 6 and all six doubles won for an excellent team performance bearing in mind that three of Chelmsford’s top five juniors were not available. Thanks to coaches Hill and Terry Dowsett for their sterling advice on the day.

FINAL TABLE

P W D L Pts

CHELMSFORD 3 3 0 0 26

CLASCTON 3 2 0 1 16

SOUTHEND 3 1 0 2 13

COLCHESTER 3 0 0 3 5

Arthur C. Clark

Junior Match Secretary