For OLOP Mark, Daniel and Gopi lined up and for Sonning Sports C, there was James, Keith and Cris. On Monday evening OLOP C played Pangbourne and won 6-4 and as league leaders Sonning knew we were in for a hard night.

The opening set went to Daniel who beat James in three close games. Mark advised that Daniel was a direct replacement for Jacek Piechoki who is now playing for Kingfisher B in Division 1!

Cris then played Gopi and just lost in the 5th game 11-9 to an edged shot.  Keith was up against Mark and managed to take a game off him, losing in four. One of the highlights of the evening was Mark returning a shot which flew off an edge into play. At the end of the rally young Daniel who was scoring commented, ‘ for your age your reactions were very good.’ There was laughter all around!

So 3-0 down after the first round of singles.

Things could only get better!  This proved to be the case as James took on Gopi. James began to find his range with his forehand and had more than enough to register Sonning Sports first point of the evening. In Sets 5 and 6 neither Keith nor Cris managed to win a game against Daniel or Mark. So 5-1 down going into the doubles.

James and Cris faced Daniel and Mark. Sonning took a two game lead winning 11-9 in both. In the third, Sonning found themselves 6-0 down only to claw it back to 6-6. However, OLOP won the game. In game 4, the Sonning pair were never behind and won 11-6. So 5-2.

The last round of singles saw Keith facing Gopi. Keith won this set comfortably as he never allowed Gopi to settle. The first game was tight and at 9-10 down , Gopi served a fault to gift the game, which was probably a pivotal moment in the match. Keith then took the next two games as Gopi lost his way. 5-3

Set 9 saw James face Mark. In a very open set James made few errors and Mark just could not quite be consistent enough to trouble James. A win in 3 games. So 5-4.

In the last set, Cris was facing Daniel. This was possibly the longest match of the night as Cris dug in to make it as uncomfortable as possible for Daniel. The first three games there were only two points in it. In game 4, Cris made a few errors to allow to record a victory for OLOP.

An entertaining evening, Brett managed to arrive for Set 10, Harry watched from the sidelines supping his pint!

By Cris Reynolds.