9th LEAGUE vs Edenvale

It takes longer to say “Tweebuffelsmeteenskootgeskietfontein” than it did to finish up our matches in league on Wednesday evening. Firstly, Edenvale phoned at about 5:45pm to say that they only had three team members. Good stuff, so we were already three games ahead. But, by 6:45pm none of the remaining three team members had arrived yet. Was it to be a walkover? Not a sausage, ‘cause they arrived just before cut-off. With the late arrival we resigned ourselves to a late evening. The Chamber was humming with 4 teams playing, so we did our bit and got stuck in.

No. 3 Steph vs Christine: I didn’t get to watch this game because I was on another court at the same time, but by all accounts Steph was clinical and wrapped this one up quicker than a taxi shoots a red traffic light. I saw him briefly on one of my inter game breaks and he was very relaxed, sauntering on the court and attending the business of winning 3-0.

No. 2 Nigel vs Dean: I was up against the youthful Dean – usually their no. 3, but playing up the order because of the missing team member. In the first game he made too many mistakes and this sent him into a semi depression. He kind of gave up in the second game and in two twitches of a robin’s tail I’d taken it 15-2. Dean shook himself out of the depression long enough to make me think I was in trouble in the third game but at 9-5 up the mistakes crept back into his game and he didn’t get another point. And that was that.

No. 4 Lyal vs nobody: Lyal manned the bar for us in the absence of an opponent. And he did it ably. Lyal, I know you wanted the walkover to count towards your league stats, but morally it’s a no-no. Thanks for the support though.

No. 1 Brennan vs Rob: Brennan had come off the back of a string of 5 setter victories and was warned last week that he had to break the trend because he was eating into bar time. Obediently , he saw to it that this game only lasted 3 games. Unfortunately the 3 games belonged to his opposite number. Brennan knew he was up against it from the warm up, he just didn’t know to what extent until the match began. He was unlucky to pull the short straw and come up against the as yet unbeaten Rob. Despite playing some blinding shots and running a mini Comrades on court, his opponent kept him out of the game like the Dalai Lama is kept out of the country. With his opponent being as sneaky as an SAA CEO, Brennan wasn’t allowed to pull a game back.

And that was it. All over by 8pm. So we had a drink and caught some of the action on court 5 where 11^th league were also teaching their Edenvale opposition a lesson.

Summary

No. 1 Brennan lost 0-3: 7-15; 8-15; 8-15

No. 2 Nigel won 3-0: 15-10; 15-2; 15-9

No. 3 Steph won 3-0: 15-8; 15-10; 15-12

No. 4 Lyal walked all over this one 3-0

Final result :12 - 3