Corstorphine III

• Chris McCathie 1
  
• Thomas Grant  2
  
• David Grant 1

Murrayfield VI

• Charlie Ellis 3
• Ian Robertson 0
• Alex Asyunkin  2

Team 6 played out an entertaining draw with Corstorphine 3 featuring a number of tense, 5-set games.

Charlie began against Chris and had some difficulties with his opponents BH drive (especially in the 2nd game which he luckily took 13-11) but won in three.  Ian then lost out in a five-setter against Thomas whose service variations caused trouble. Alex and David played out a tense match: neither player was at their best but Alex did well to win having been 2-1 down-Dave mis-firing with his FH at key moments.

Charlie won with surprising ease against Thomas before Alex beat Chris in a tense contest.
This left the match at 4-1 to Murrayfield but Ian lost out to David in yet another 5-setter: Ian doing well to force David into playing an unusually defensive game but struggled to put away the high ball.
The doubles between Ian & Charlie and the two Grants was another tense one, again going the distance. The Murrayfield pair were rather inconsistent: Ian’s service return let him down and Thomas took advantage with some big  FH’s in the final game.

In something of a surprise result, an out of sorts Alex was comfortably beaten by young Thomas who got on top early and didn’t allow Alex to find his rhythm (Alex thus lost his 100 per cent average). Charlie then beat Dave in three tight ends to set up the final match between Chris and Ian as a decider (Murrayfield 5-4 ahead). Chris took the 1st two games, regularly scoring with his BH drive before Ian got his quick attack game going and varied his serve well to level the match at 2-each. The final end had virtually everything: great attacking strokes, superb defense (from Chris), long rallies, edges and nets and even a flung bat (!). Ian had a great chance to take the game with a FH smash at 14-13 up but struck it long; urged on by the Corstorphine support (including Cor II who had beaten Penicuik III), Chris eventually took the game 16-14. Ian was very unlucky to lose his three games -all were close 5-setters.

match played: 14 Jan 2009, at Corstorphine.