NORBURY PARK LTC DEFEATED GRATFON LTC 5-4
Norbury Park, playing at home on Sunday 6 April, snatched a 5-4 win against Grafton.Here is Grafton’s match report for their website: –
Our opener didn’t quite go according to plan but in the greater scheme of things we earned 4 valuable points although it was a bit of a classic case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory:
We went 3/1 up after the first round of matches; Monica and Katie recovered from losing their first sets to win on tiebreaks and Mark wore down a stubborn opponebt in a long match 6/1 2/6 1/0 (6); Ollie was up against a bigger,older opponent and was worth more than the 6/1 6/0 scoreline demonstrating skill and an excellent temperament.
Liz and Rachel produced a solid performance to win the doubles (4/1) ; Chris and Eddie lost a high-quality match 3/6 2/6 (4/2) so we needed just one more of the remaining matches to win but things went downhill at this point: Murray and Rosie both lost the first 3/6 and blew 5/2 leads in the second to lose in straight sets (4/4)
So all rested on the mixed played out before a good boisterous crowd; Tom and Laura started well moving to 4/1 but were edged 5/7 and lost a well-contested second 4/6 with Grafton saving 5 match points in a tense finale.
Results:
Women’s Singles: Siobhan Thompson d Rosie Merriman 6-3 7-5; Men’s Singles: Tahir Ahmed lost to Mark Gunner 6-1 2-6 [10-6]; Women’s Over 45 Singles: Kate Hazelwood lost to Monica Parrot 7-5 2-6 [10-7]; Men’s Over 40 Singles: Tahir Ahmed lost to Mark Gunner 1-6 6-2 [10-6]; Girls Under 16 Singles: Maryam Ghani lost to Katie Diamond 6-3 3-6 [10-8]; Boys Under 16 Singles: Daniel Jacob-Ormson d Ollie Cumming 6-1 6-0; Women’s Doubles: Lisa Patient & Annemarie Bowden lost to Liz Wickham & Rachel Codd 6-3 6-4; Men’s Doubles: Matt Gordon & Terry McGranaghan d Chris Stonehouse & Eddie Tomlinson 6-3 6-2; Mixed Doubles: Carole Watson & Dan Lockeretz d Laura Arthur & Tom Edwards7-5 6-4.
It is interesting to note that Norbury Park won 13 sets against Grafton’s 8, and a total of 95 games to 75 so while the tie was close it was also decided by a significant margin.