John Clark reports - Chatham Gannet were fast out of the blocks against Sheerness East, winning three of the first four games but they couldn't sustain their challenge against their promotion-chasing opponents and went down 3 - 7 at The Howard. In game 1, Liu Guo recovered well from losing the first set to take the point in four against John Barker; his wife Tan went one step better, winning in three straight against Aubrey Maryott. The ever-dependable Simon Hatt, who has only lost once this season, got the visitors on the board by winning game three against Rob Hudd, impressively showing even more consistency than his tricky opponent. Tan then beat John in an incredibly close match, the set scores telling the story: 15-13, 11-8, 10-12, 12-10. It was a win by a squeak but it produced a match score at this stage that threatened to derail Sheerness' promotion push - fortunately for them, however, this proved to be the turning point as Simon beat Liu in the next game and later, Tan as well to finish with yet another treble and the man-of-the-match accolade, whilst John and Aubrey also triumphed in their remaining singles. With the score 6 - 3 going into the doubles, Tan and Liu lost the first two sets to Aubrey and Simon but came back well to pinch the third 15 - 13 and ran the visitors close in set four before going down 13-15 to leave Sheerness perhaps relieved that things didn't turn out as badly as they would have feared earlier in the evening. They remain 16 points adrift of Upnor B at the top of Division 2, but their three games in hand must surely make them slight favourites at this stage, for the title.