Match Report

Once again I am indebted to John Clark for his match report :-

Chatham teams Furious and Gannet played out a draw at The Howard. Furious skipper John Clark succumbed meekly, as he usually does, to his opposing number Chris Morford who has the consistency of a Swiss timepiece against players who can’t produce enough spin, consistency or patience. Zhong Jiao Tan squared matters with a comfortable victory over David Aluko, then Liu Guo nudged the home side ahead by defeating Sean Durkin; there then followed an epic five-set struggle between Chris and Tan, the latter eventually coming back from two sets down for an excellent win. Tan showed great patience, working the ball around the angles of the table and reigning back her attacking instinct to eventually do enough - a good performance. The blueprint for a late night was sealed in the next game, with John and Sean also playing out an epic match, the latter getting over the line with a 15 - 13 victory in the decider. With the previous two sets scoring 14 - 12, 11 - 13 you can get the idea of how close this game was. 

Liu then beat David to restore a two-point lead for Furious but Sean Durkin, who gets little practice these days, then turned in perhaps the performance of the night to beat Tan in four sets, showing what he is capable of when he gets his eye in. Liu then lost to Chris, leaving the tie all square at 4 - 4. All we needed now was another five-setter and we got one, as David Aluko finally won his first league point against John in an all-penhold game that had some entertaining rallies. David, in his first season playing competitively, works hard on his game and will in time become a fine player. 

Tan and Liu won the doubles against Chris and David to round off the night around 10.45pm, by which time everyone else had gone, leaving the home captain to lock up and ponder where his next point might be coming from after two straight blank evenings.
Written by: Michael Sheppard
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