My thanks to John Clark for the following report :-

Chatham Furious raced into a 4-0 lead against their club rivals Hector, but were pegged back largely thanks to the efforts of Ukrainian youngster Ivan Benchak, who won two points to help his side  restrict the damage to a7-3 result. John Clark opened the tie with a much-needed win against Simon Fever - the Furious skipper fearedthe worst when Simon took advantage of a huge nett fluke when a match point down in the fourth to force a decider, but any thoughts of “here we go again” were dispelled as he closed the game out 11-6 in the fifth. Zhong Jiao Tan made surprisingly light work of Ivan in three and Liuyun Guo despatched Stewart Day by the same scoreline, Tan then returning to the table to beat Simon Fever, also in three sets.

The Furious gravy train was halted in the next game between John and Ivan, the youngster finding his opponent , perhaps buoyed by actually winning a point for a change, to be a far more stubborn prospect than the lasttime they met. The game went to five sets, with Ivan finally putting his team on the scorecard after a tense 11-7 decider. With the running order now changed due to John playing Ivan when he should have taken on Stewart, Tan played her third game of the night and completed a treble (without losing a set) against the Hector skipper. Liu then lostbto Ivan, who had to endure another five-setter - both players looked jaded for different reasons and could probably have done without an epic. Ivan was sitting exams all day, and Liu has just returned from China and is still suffering from jet lag. It was an excellent effort from the schoolboy to get the job done for his team.

The game that should have been played earlier between the captains John and Stewart was a close affair, the latter admitting this was ac’target point’ for him and he worked hard for it, eventually  going down in a very  close fourth set 12-10. In the final singles Liu, by now struggling to keep his eyes open, succumbed in three to Simon. John and Tan triumphed in the doubles against Stewart and Ivan but squeaked home 12-10 in sets btgree and four, their slightly better consistency just proving enough to get the job done.