Ladies: Charlotte, Linda, Dawn

Men: Dave, David, Willie

Results 5-4

The team all arrived at Wisewood nice and early, at the promise of having 3 courts, but with a little trepidation at playing Wisewood 1, since we’d lost to Wisewood 2 (6-3) earlier in the season.

The first 3 games we played set us up for a nice early lead.  Charlotte and Linda won their ladies, Dave and David (standing in for Chris) won their mens and Dawn and Willie won their mixed.  Buzzing from our success we all went on again – only to lose the next 3 rubbers (2 of which went to 3 and were very close).  From our great start, we found ourselves at a score of 3-3 with our last 3 rubbers (all mixed) to play.

Charlotte and Dave fought hard in their first game, and had a close win of 23-21.  In the second end they’d found their stride and won easily with a final score of 21-13.

David and Linda went on to play at the same time as Willie and Dawn – in the knowledge that the score was 4-3 and there was everything to play for.  When Willie and Dawn lost in 2 close games, it was down to David and Linda to save the day.  David confessed to ‘usually bottling it’ when such a demand was on him and at one game each things were on a knife edge! Despite these worries, they played magnificently in the final game and succeeded in securing the team a win with an overall score of 5-4!

Thank you to all for turning up early and playing hard, and to David for standing in at short notice.

Tuesday 18th October 2011

4-5

John W, Dave W | Chris R, Simon O | David P, Mark R

Another good match was played out at home, this time against Paces. Most of the games were close with many rubbers going to a third game. Unfortunately our third pair (*blush*) didn’t manage to win any rubbers and the resulting pressure on the remaining two pairs proved a little too much as at 4-4 we lost the deciding rubber in two very close games. We need to put it behind us now and concentrate for Friday’s match which is against Phoenix where the result is always close.

Thursday 13 October 2011

3-6

Ed S, Simon O | Nick F, Simon T | Tipue M A, Willie McK

The uni had been a division above us for the last few years, but were relegated down to our division this year, so this was the first match with them for a while, and the first time we’d played them at Hillsborough College (which turned out to be relatively easy to find but almost impossible to get into).  Their first pair were noticeably a level above us, and they won their three games easily.  Their other pairs were more our level, and we had some very close matches – five of the six going to the third game.  Nick and Simon won both theirs, finishing each with a narrow 21-19 victory.  Ed and Simon came from behind to win one, and then dropped from ahead to lose the other.  Tipue and Willie made a brave and tiring effort, but were unable to win either despite a tense 24-22 victory in one of the games.

Friday 7 October 2011

5-4

Aaron G, Simon O  |  Nick F, Simon T  |  David W, John W

Always close between Oakbrook and Phoenix, and this was no exception.  Their third pair proved to be their strongest, winning all their three games, with only David and John able to take them to a third game.  Their second pair, seemingly defeated by the colour of the lines and the speed of the shuttles before they’d started, never really settled, and we won all our games against them.  That left their first pair, and the two regular feathers-team pairs were able to win by small margins, giving us a 5-4 win overall.

The Combined 2 team played away at Abbeydale on 17th October 2011.

Our team consisted of Dave, Chris and Willie and Charlotte, Linda and Dawn (c)

All the rubbers were really close – with 4 out of the 9 going to 3 games.

At the end of the 8th game, we found ourselves in the situation that no-one wants to be in….. the last game (with everyone watching) was going to be the decider…… heads down after we lost the first game 21-17… picked them up again when we won the next game 21-17…. and the final score… 21-7 to us.

Overall score – we won 5 – 4!

The partnerships started to fall into place and it was nice to see them starting to gel and work together on court, well done everyone!

The teams have been picked, the shuttles have been distributed and the season is now in full swing. We’ve had a bit of a mixed start to the season so far. Our fledgling Combined Plastics 2 team played their first fixture last week and Mens Plastics 2 got under way as well. Unfortunately, Oakbrook came second in both those fixtures. Last night was the season opener for Mens Plastics 1 and I’m pleased to announce that we had a terrific result in beating University 6-3 with each pair coming away with a 2-1 record on the night. The standard was high and the match was played in a most sporting manner. Let’s hope that this is the start of an Oakbrook resurgence for our upcoming fixtures.