Photos above by Steve Joel

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Cippenham’s two teams in the Senior British Clubs League both made solid starts to the new season over the weekend. Both teams were playing at their home venue and that will be the case for all matches throughout this season. Having been relegated last time around, the first team are operating in National Division B-2 while the B team have remained in Division C-5.

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The first team got off to a cracking start, winning all their first three matches but were undone by a strong Fusion team on Sunday afternoon, finishing in third place in their division.. Meanwhile, the B team won twice and lost twice to end the first weekend in a mid-table position.

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Martin Gray was named Player of the Match as Cippenham commenced with a 6-3 win over Gwent. He won both of his matches while Rob Hansell, team captain Martin Adams and Shae Thakker won once each. Rob and Shae also shared a win in the doubles set. Significantly, all Cippenham’s six wins were by the score of 3-0, emphasising a general superiority over their Welsh opponents.

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Saturday afternoon’s fixture pitched Cippenham against Crusaders. This time Martin Gray failed to win both of his matches but the other three players did so and Cippenham ran out easy 8-1 victors. Shae Thakker was named Player of the Match.

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For the Sunday matches, Shae Thakker and Martin Gray were replaced by Andy Norwood and Steve Munson. Martin Adams became the third different Cippenham player to pick up the Player of the Match award as he defeated both Lee Phillips and Jack Vaughan. Andy, by beating Daniel Petit and Robert Chandler, also bagged a brace while an opening victory for Rob Hansell over Chandler and a doubles win for Martin Adams and Andy saw Cippenham secure a 6-3 win over Bristol Associates after a close and exciting encounter in which five of the nine sets required a deciding fifth game.

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Sunday finished disappointingly for Cippenham with a 8-1 defeat by Fusion 3. Only Martin Adams tasted victory while three other sets were lost by very close margins in the fifth game, including both of Rob's 14-12 and 12-10.

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Cippenham’s second team, bolstered by the inclusion of Hari Gehlot, started their campaign with a useful 6-3 win over Isle of Wight. Louis Alexander emulated Hari by winning both of his singles matches and the two combined together to win the doubles. Bharath Prasanna Kumar beat Gabor Bodnar, but debutant George Driscoll, who became the thirtieth member of the Club’s coaching scheme to graduate to the Senior British League team over a period of nearly thirty years, failed to add to the scoreline.

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That scoreline was reversed in the afternoon as Cippenham lost 6-3 to Godalming Simply Let. Bharath excelled beating Harry Barker and Varun Shastry and Louis defeated Robert Piel but that was as good as it got.

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Steve Joel replaced Hari Gehlot for the matches on Sunday but could not assist his team in the morning match as their succumbed to Ellenborough 8-1 with only a doubles win for Louis and George going the hosts’ way. However, the tables were completely turned in the afternoon as Fareham-based Generation 2 were thrashed 9-0.