Unbelievable.
Once again we were the first to start and the last to finish. Maybe it's the length of rallies or maybe it's the number of games we play in a single night. It would be interesting to see, if on average we've played more ends per match than any other team, thus far.

For the first time this season, we were able to play in the correct order of play. With Ronnie arriving early and eager to play, he opened proceedings with a 5 sets win against reserve player Arunn, playing up from Comets C.

Next up was me v David. After losing the opening set relatively comfortably, David raced through the next three sets.

George found the night difficult, losing out to Tai in 4 ends, and then losing his next two matches 3 straight. That accounted for two of only three matches that didn't go beyond a third set. The other was in my match against Arunn, where he briefly threatened to take the match into a fourth set coming back from 9-5 down to 9-9 in the third set.

I held my nerve in that one, but it lost it completely in my final match of the evening v Tai. After winning the first two sets and being completely in control, I was overwhelmed in the remaining three sets.

The final and best match of the night featured Ronnie against David. David won the opening two sets. The next two sets saw Ronnie playing some superb attacking shots and David excellent defensive returns, ending with Ronnie level at 2-2. Ronnie having won the fourth set 11-5, all looked favourably towards a Ronnie victory.
Alas it was not to be, David prevailed, winning their closest set by the narrowest of margins 11-9.

The combination of players of doubles, ie who serves first and who receives first, can greatly influence the outcome of a match and so it proved in the final match of the night with the sets going 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2. Needing to build a lead in the final set, we found ourselves 5-4 down at the change of ends. All pointed towards a Comets' victory, but amazingly we were first to reach match point at 10-8. We then lost the next three points to face a match point. At 11-11, Ronnie played an unbelievable return to take us to our third match point which we thankfully took.

To conclude, we won the opening and closing matches of the night in 5 sets, but lost the match 7-3.

A well deserved, and not an unflattering win for Comets, but maybe just maybe given the number of ends played we deserved a little more from the match.

John