Now that we have Alex strengthening our ranks at #2 we were much more enthusiastic about our upcoming game against Hunts I - though still missing Anna due to her injury forced Kerri to play up ahead of Susan who we could borrow from our 1st team.
As Wendy Bradshaw had to hurry home to a sick 3-year-old Reka was first on court. After taking a game off her during the county closed and having her spirits boosted by other unexpected events she really felt that this is going to be the day when she can give a game to Wendy. The sudden rush on court caught her mentally unprepared though and the new shoes she put on straight out of the box didn't help - they had no grip whatsoever which resulted in one spectacular face planting into the floor after loosing both her legs due to an attempted lunge. After total annihilation in the first game (15-4!) she squirted some water on her soles and got some kind words from the teammates so the second game became more competitive - still not good enough against a worrying mother who wants to get back to her child and kills every possible shot with incredible nicks. Never mind, third time lucky. Finally got the focus and the lead and at 14-13 played a good drop to the front right corner that got driven straight back without Wendy stepping off the ball - textbook stroke thought Reka and called it, not risking either hitting her opponent or losing the point due to a lousy shot. Let ball. To be fair, it was really tight! With her concentration broken again she quickly lost 3 points and the match as well
Wow, that was a long description compared to the fact that it only took 27 minutes- including the 8 minute knock-up!
In the meantime Susan Boyd battled against her boogie player Babs Moore. Babs dominated the first game and won it 15-4 than Susan started to warm into it. Second game 15-8 ti Babs but the third went to Susan for 15-12 (well done girl!)! Fear overcame long hours of coaching in the 4th though and Babs fetched it 15-9
Kerri was on against Lynne King playing tight games but unable to beat her at the front of the court, lost the match 15-7; 15-9; 15-8
Sarah's opponent was the youngest Hastings: Katie. Her squash has been coming along nicely but it was already obvious in the first game that Sarah took Bob's coaching on board incredibly quickly. She changed her normal hard serve to a soft lob that put Katie on her back foot every time and used beautiful lob-boast or lob-drop combos during rallies very effectively. Katie seemed a bit reluctant to move for any of these so they were winners every time they were played. Spiced up with the beautiful drives and good retrieval from the back that we're already used to from Sarah the game was looking really tight - if not for the series of attempted drops that went in the tin one after the other. First game to Katie, 15-10. In the second game Sarah served out a couple of times and fell back to her old hard one but moved and retrieved better which led to and epic hand-in-hand-out battle towards the end. Sarah lost some game points to attempted drops again and the game finally went to Katie 18-16. The third game started strongly for Katie, moving Sarah around from one corner to the other and getting to 8-4 relatively quickly. Sarah cought up here and started to get back into it, but not fast enough: game to and match to Katie, 15-10
Alex defended our honour against Nicky Hastings. Relaxed a bit after going 2-0 up and got caught by Nicky's accurate boasts and great retrieval at the front which cost her the third game but she got back into it quickly and took the third 15-9, moving Nicky around and retrieving her tricky boasts
Well played ladies, we're up for Saffron Walden next week!