Cippenham’s two teams fared very differently during the second weekend of the Senior British Clubs League season on Saturday and Sunday. Whereas the Cippenham second team continued their winning ways in National Division C-8, the first team lost all four of their matches in Division A-2, albeit some very closely, although one of those defeats was reversed after it was revealed that the opponents had listed their players in an incorrect order..

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The Prasanna Kumar brothers once again dominated proceedings for the second team with Sai’s unbeaten record remaining intact after he registered another eight superb wins. Sai’s older brother Bharath was his perfect foil, picking up seven wins out of eight, as he did also during the first weekend in September, and was the nominated player of the match on two occasions.

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Their first match was against Foresters 2, a club from Crawley, Sussex. Sai came close to tasting defeat for the first time in this match, having to recover from 8-10 down in the deciding game to get the better of Brandon Bennett. That result was important as it levelled the overall score of the match 3-3. Maciej Dlugozima had played Bennett earlier and after winning the first two games eventually lost in five. Louis Alexander had no answer to the returning Mark Banks, a Maidonian and former Cippenham player, but Bharath was really impressive in eclipsing the challenge of Kate Cheer. When Louis suffered his second defeat it left Cippenham 3-4 down with two to play. Up stepped Maciej to recover from 2-1 down to beat Cheer and then Bharath kept his nerve and sealed the points for Cippenham with a 19-17, 11-4, 11-7 defeat of Banks.

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Saturday afternoon was a little more comfortable for Cippenham as they raced into a 5-1 lead against Welsh team Penlan and eventually won 6-3. Sai was imperious in this match, winning both this matches 3-0 while Louis secured a similar scoreline against Ryan Trigg who was later to inflict upon Bharath his only defeat of the weekend. Cippenham’s other wins came from Maciej and the brothers in the doubles.

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Sunday morning was the match everyone had been waiting for: the battle between the two teams at the top of the division, both with one-hundred-percent records. Cippenham’s opponents were Bristol Associates, top of the division due to their superior sets aggregate. Maciej lost the opening set against Roget Kou but Sai equalised with a tough five-gamer over Rafal Bryk. Cippenham hit the lead when Bharath won comfortably against Svilen Andreev but then Michael Chang equalised for Bristol against Louis. The Prasanna Kumar brothers paired up to win the doubles and when Sai had impressively beaten Kou over five games, Cippenham were in dreamland 4-2 up. However, defeats for Maciej and Louis made the score 4-4 and provided for a tense finish. After losing the first game, Bharath showed his mettle and won the next three games against Chang to give Cippenham a much heralded 5-4 victory and a position at the top of the division that was no longer shared.

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The final match was an easy a 9-0 victory over Ashford 3 with Louis picking up his first player of the match award.

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The Cippenham first team were bolstered by the new signings of Rishaan Sawant and Elliott Chan, both from Reading. However, results did not go the way of the host team, starting with a 2-7 defeat to Fulham Brunswick on Saturday morning. Rishaan and Andy Norwood both beat Ben Palmer-Jones but that was all that counted for Cippenham despite three other sets going the distance of five games.

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However, the Saturday afternoon match provided fresh hope as Cippenham ran the unbeaten divisional leaders Match Play Academy close, losing only 4-5. With Match Play including England ranked number eight Chris Doran in their side it was always going to be an uphill battle and Doran duly won his two singles and the doubles. Cippenham’s successes came from Robert Hansell, Shae Thakker, Rishaan Sawant and Andy Norwood who all won one each.

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Rishaan put on a bit of a show for Cippenham in the matches on Sunday, being awarded the player of the match on both occasions. Against Fusion 3 in the morning, he beat Jesse Bath and Francesco Bonato and then, against Urban 2 in the afternoon, he defeated Lucas Papantoniou and Denise Payet. Both matches finished 4-5 on the table but it was subsequently discovered that Fusion had played out of order and the match result was duly reversed in Cippenham’s favour, leaving the hosts placed sixth out of the eight teams, having won three and lost five so far this season.