It was all change in Week 4 of the Bexhillians Internal Club Competition, after three weeks where the losing team gained a consolation bonus point in all twelve matches, three of the four games produced heavy defeats with the losers taking no points.
The top two teams both lost, with second placed Ivory Rose having to find three replacements after last week’s first defeat. Ivory Rose went down 8-1 to TT Allstarz who had Paul Hyland and James Gorridge unbeaten and two wins from Roy Funnell. Hyland may have been surprised to find his first opponent was his Nalgo teammate Mike Courtnage, who was, almost literally, a last minute replacement. Andy Chapman kept Ivory Rose’s hopes alive, beating Funnell in three games but going down to Gorridge by a similar margin.
New leaders are Rose & Two Thorns who had a surprisingly comfortable 8-1 win over Bats Atoxic with maximums from Rose Rainton and Tony Catt and two wins for Sheila King. All the sets were decided in straight games and Roger Pingram’s win over King was the only consolation for the Toxics. Rose and her Thorns now lead TT Allstarz on sets won.
Leaders Going Down lived up to their name as they were beaten 7-2 by Ball Bashers for whom Ryan Heselden won three and Nick Coleman and Chris Hack won two, while John Ellis picked up both of GD’s wins. Four of the first six sets went to three, three of which were won by the Bashers. Thirteen-year-old Emily Koester turned out for the downwardly mobiles and impressed in all of her games. Ball Bashers move up to third, just ahead of Going Down.
The two bottom teams met and provided the match of the day as Winter Mixtures beat Slovakquickdust 5-4. Martin Kapusta was unbeaten for the Slovaks while Nathan Darby and Andy Panayi won two each for the Mixtures. Kapusta excelled to take the much anticipated clash with Darby 7-11, 11-7, 11-8.
Indicative of how tight the competition is (partly down to the scoring system), Winter Mixtures moved from seventh to being one point off the top and Slovakquickdust lost 5-4 but moved out of last place, which is now occupied by Bats Atoxic.
