Jack Adams scored an excellent treble to maintain his 100% record this season, but his efforts were not enough to prevent Rainham III going down to a 6-4 defeat against Gannet at the Howard. The match kicked off with a tight encounter between John Clark and Stephen Hayes, the home skipper finding Stephen’s close-to-the-table style tricky to cope with, before he eventually prevailed to take the point in five. Zhongjiao Tan then beat Keith Adams before Gannet suffered their first reverse of the evening as Jack’s relentless, almost metronomic, backhands battered Liu Guo into a three-set submission. Tan increased Gannet’s lead with a comfortable win over Stephen, before a titanic struggle ensued between John and Jack. Both players were sticking like glue in points, battering each other across both sides of the table in an entertaining encounter, which Jack finally put to bed 11-8 in the fifth. Liu then secured his only point of the evening against Keith to put Gannet 4-2 up but, justwhen it looked like they might take command of the match, Jack inflicted a surprisingly heavy dereat on Tan with some great hitting and Stephen edged a tight encounter with Liu to bring it back to 5-4. A solid performance from the experienced pairing of Tan and John finally managed to complete Gannet’s third win in a row, as they secured the doubles in four against Stephen and Jack, making the final score 6-4.

Written by: Michael Sheppard