REDLAND GREEN 10 WRITHLINGTON 0

DL WESTBURY 6 WRITHLINGTON 4

SODBURY 8 WRITHLINGTON 2

The results reflected not only the very tough opposition, but also the distinct home advantage of playing on surfaces unfamiliar to Writhlington players. The Men’s Seniors in particular would be saying “Wait ‘til we play them at our place!”

Redland finished second in Division One in both the Ladies’ and Men’s Summer League, so the Writhlington team of Sarah Dawe, Francesca Beg, James Brocksopp and Andy Jeffery were hoping they would not be fielding first team players – wrong! All of them were.

Captain James is carrying an Achilles injury, so decided the best chance of points lay with pairing Ces and Andy together. Before starting against Alex W and Kirstie, their declared objective was to “try to get a game” – they succeeded at the first attempt by breaking Alex! Redland then forged ahead to 4-1, then 6-3. The second set was going the same way, but Ces gave a spectacular demonstration of hard-hitting angled crosscourts and “break-the-fence” smashes, which enabled the Writhlington pair to be 6-5 up, with Ces to serve. Unfortunately we lost that game, and the tie-break, for a 6-3, 7-6 loss. But we were very pleased to have got that close!

James and Sarah seemed to be giving as good as they got against Alex M and Emma, but the scoreline of 6-1, 6-1 did not reflect it. James nearly took Emma’s head off with a booming return of Alex’s fast serve!

Unfortunately, the same result happened to James and Sarah in the reverse rubber against Alex W and Kirstie, but getting a game in each set against that level of opposition deserves a high five!

Against Alex M and Emma, Ces and Andy let them have too much of a lead in both sets (4-1), and they tried but just couldn’t quite pull it back for a 6-4, 6-4 loss. If Ces had been paired with any of our first team players, I am sure they would have gathered some points for Writhlington, but we certainly had close matches and could leave with our heads held high.

Fully aware of Westbury’s recent 10-0 thrashing of Cotham Park (Cotham accrued only 12 games!), and conscious of the huge home advantage that carpet and close side netting gives to Westbury, the team of Bryn Jones, Dean Taylor, Chris Cox and Andy Jeffery were “concerned.” In addition, a major traffic jam made Chris half an hour late collecting Andy and Bryn.

Chris was still in fast-driving mode for the first 1½ sets against Paul and Graham, so much so that one of his (very hard) serves hit Andy’s racket, sending it spinning across to the other court! The pair just could not get a grip on either Westbury serves, with them not even able to get a point on Paul’s serves! However, at 4-6, 1-3 down, Chris suddenly changed and got “in the zone”, and we started to pull it round, and after a tremendous fight back, managed to win 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Dean and Bryn had a difficult task against Chris Arnold and Rob Hazell (very competent Division Five and Six players), and went down 6-1, 6-1.

At half-time, Andy counselled Dean and Bryn to “high five if you get a racket on Paul’s serve.” Well, the pair not only were 3-1 up in the second set, but even managed to break Paul’s serve – a fantastic achievement! Despite this, they went down (fighting!) 6-1, 6-3.

Andy and Chris had a very tight, testing match against Chris and Rob, but were not in the mood to have their “never beaten as a pairing” tag removed, and managed to edge it 6-4, 6-4.

Westbury were very hospitable afterwards, and we had a good night. Big thanks to both Dean and Bryn for stepping in to cover absences.

Andy Jeffery