Sunday 12 Feb
Mixed 2 had a tough fixture against a strong Wargrave 3 in Division 5E on Sunday and they were unlucky not to come awaay with at least a point as, in contrast to the ladies the day before, they won only one out of three deciding tiebreaks. Matt Paxton/Ravinder Norman lost to the visitors’ first pair 6-4 3-6 0-1 while Simon Usher/Wendy Miles were going down 6-3 0-6 0-1. Paxton/Norman had another fight in the second round and this time they won 2-6 7-6 1-0 but Usher/Miles lost in straight sets.
It was a good day for our Boys 14U team as they lost just one game in their 3-0 demolishing of Twyford. In the FAST 4 format, Jake Walbancke beat Edward Gates 4-0 4-0 and Nicholas Coia-Evans also won 4-0 4-0 against Jacob Pickard. Georg Maynard swapped with Nicholas in the doubles and they won 4-1 4-0 against Gates/Pickard. The win means they have won their division with the loss of just 2 rubbers.
Saturday 11 Feb
It was a great result on Saturday for Ladies’ 1 in a close home match in Division 3 against local rivals Wokingham 2. Three matches went to a deciding tie-break and all were run by the Crows team in a 3-1 victory. Tina Stern/Maggie Ingham had a slow start losing the first set 1-6 against Karen Fowler/Lynn Taylor but they came back strongly to take the second set 6-3 and win the tie-break. In contrast, Jenny Sheppard/Jenny Partridge won their first set 6-3 against Debbie Wright/Wendy McLaren but had a dreadful second, which they lost 0-6. However, they also won the deciding tie-break to make it 2-0 at the halfway point. In the second round it was another topsy-turvey score for Stern/Ingham in which they came out on top 6-2 2-6 1-0 against Wright/McLaren and it didn’t matter that the two Jennies lost 3-6 2-6 to Fowler/Taylor.
Sunday 5 Feb
Crows’ 14U Boys had a 2-1 win away at Latika on Sunday to put them clear at the top of Division 2A with a match to play at home against Twyford next weekend. Jake Walbancke had a 4-3 4-2 win against Udan Delpachitra and, although Henry Evan-Hart lost 2-4 1-4 against Finn Borkowski, he and Jake rounded off the match with a 4-2 4-1 win in the doubles.
Saturday 4 Feb
It was a tough afternoon for Ladies’ 1 against Riseley 1 in Division 3 on Saturday losing 0-4 to a very strong team. Tina Stern/Jenny Sheppard had a good fight against Clementina Tuck & GIll Stoney, losing 2-6 4-6, but Maggie Ingham/Penny Hemingway could make little impact against Karen Holt/Chris Nagpaul, losing 1-6 1-6. Ingham/Hemingway fared no better against Tuck/Stoney but Stern/Sheppard got closer against Holt/Nagpaul, losing 5-7 3-6.
It was better news back at St.Sebastians where Ladies’ 2 faced Broomhall 1 in Division 8. Jenny Partridge/Natalie Duncan-Brown had a good afternoon, winning 7-6 6-4 against Michelle Ford/Maud Billod and 6-4 6-4 against Anne Laffitte/Anne-Renee Tessier. Helen Hodgkinson playing with Liz Goddard, who had only found out she was playing an hour before the match, lost 3-6 1–6 against the visitors’ second pair and 1-6 0-6 against theirs firsts, but they performed admirably under the circumstances and the point gained for the losing draw was most welcome! See picture above.
Sunday 29 Jan
Men’s 1 faced Wokingham 1, top of Division 2, on Sunday and found themselves up against a very strong team as they lost 0-4 in straight sets. The Crows team featured some of our top players – Luke Tearall/Jake Griffiths and Russell Finch/Peter Collier – but they were no match for the visitors who have dropped just one point this season – against Maidenhead in their opening fixture.
Men’s 2 fared better away against Caversham 3 in Division 4, coming away with 2 points from a match where all results were possible. Pete/Ollie Walker were unlucky losing 6-7 5-7 in their first rubber against Andy Barker/Kevin Byrne and so were Matt Paxton/Chris Torkington who came back to take the second set against Alex Briggs/Yiu Kwong Lam only to lose 4-6 6-4 0-1. It was a different result in their second rubber, however, when they roared back in the second set to win 3-6 6-0 1-0 against Barker/Byrne with the Walkers also finding form to win 6-0 6-2 and take the 2 points for a winning draw.
Men’s 3 were at home to Basildon in Division 5W and they proved too much for Steve Stow/Simon Usher and Andy Valner/Rob Hughes who lost 0-4 in straight sets.
Sunday 22 Jan
Sunday saw the turn of the Mixed league with our teams playing their first matches due to the ones back in November all being rained off. Mixed 1 had a home match against Wokingham 3 in Division 4 and they had a winninjg 2-2 draw, although they could have taken all three points on another day. Matt Paxton/Tina Sterm won a tight rubber 7-5 7-6 against Jason Stotesbury/Debbie Wright and, with Pete Walker/Jenny Sheppard winning an equally tight one 7-6 6-4 against Mark/Wendy McLaren, the match was virtually decided then. However, the Wokingham team fought back well with Walker/Sheppard losing 4-6 6-7 to Stotesbury/Wright and Paxton/Stern losing 4-6 7-6 0-1 to the McLarens. In the end there was 1 game in it but the extra set made sure the 2 points went to Crowthorne.
Mixed 2’s fixture against Bracknell 3 in Division 5E was spoilt due to the decision of Bracknell to field several players who usually play in their higher teams, their 1st and 2nd team matches having been postponed due to the weather. With Rachel Speight, more usually the partner of Andy Fryatt in Bracknell’s Mixed 1 or partnering Emma Pattinson in their Ladies’ 1 playing down in Division 5E instead of Division 1, it was always going to be one sided and, therefore somewhat pointless. Add Tom Gordon, usually of Bracknell’s Mixed 2, playing in their 2nd pair, and it becomes even sillier. These names are all ex-Crowthorne players who left the club to get stronger tennis elsewhere and annually featured in our finals day programme when they played at our club. Our team of Penny Hemingway/Simon Usher and Jenny Partridge/Steve Stow must have wondered what had hit them and what was the point of it as they fought valiantly but lost in straight sets, winning 7 games.
Sunday 8 Jan
It was a fairly miserable weekend for the Men’s teams with the 2nd team’s match at home to Maidenhead 5 postponed because of the rain and the 1sts and 3rds badly affected by the weather away at Maidenhead and Caversham respectively. Both teams lost 1-3, although, with a little bit of luck, it could have been 2-2 in both cases.
Maidenhead are a strong club, as having their 3rd team in Division 2 indicates, but Crows 1 were able to field a good lineup of Jake Griffiths/Luke Tearall and James Brennan/Peter Collier. Although the first two rubbers were fairly close straight sets losses for both pairs, in the second round, Brennan/Collier nearly broke through in their first set against the home number 1 pair, only to lose 5-7 3-6. Meanwhile, Griffiths/Tearall scored a respectable 7-6 6-3 victory over their 2nd pair. The match was disrupted by frequent interruptions from the home team wanting to stop for the rain, despite the players all being wet and the temperature relatively mild for January.
There were no breaks for the weather at Caversham for Crows 3 as the rain increased in intensity throughout the match and the players were paddling at the south end of the courts during most of the second round. Richard McCully/Andy Valner had a good start against the home 1st pair, Ross Tulloch and Yiu Kwong Lam, winning the first set 6-2, But they lost the second 3-6 and didn’t manage to clinch the deciding tie-break. On the other court, Steve Stow and Mike Smith, who must have wished he had ignored the late Saturday night call to play his first winter match for a number of years, were having a titanic battle against hard hitting Ben Rumble and Lee Sharpe. After an hour and a half, they eventually conceded the first set 6-7 having lost the tie-break 14-12. They then went into the second set and again, after being on the verge of losing several times, reached 5-5 only to lose 5-7. In the second round, McCully/Valner got the better of Rumble/Sharpe 7-5 in the first set and closed out the second 6-2. Meanwhile, Stow/Smith were in another battle against Tulloch/Lam, losing the first set 5-7 and down 1-5 in the second. Another epic comeback looked possible as Smith held serve at a time when he would quite happily have conceded it and gone to dry off! They then broke service to make it 3-5 but Stow, now serving from the deep end and all four players struggling with the saturated balls, was unable to maintain the momentum and the match was over.