An excellent 8-1 win over Ellenborough on Saturday morning saw the Cippenham first team leapfrog their opponents to climb out of the relegation zone in Senior British League National Division A-2. On the other side of the hall the Cippenham second team were also enjoying victory but results changed in the afternoon with defeat for both teams.

 

Cippenham 1 were at full strength for the first time this season whilst opponents Ellenborough, from Enfield, were not. The difference was made to pay as Cippenham romped to an easy 8-1 win. The only blemish was Martin Gray’s 3-2 loss to Percy Collino but it was Cippenham all the way apart from that. Player of the match Shae Thakker gave Cippenham the perfect start with a 3-0 success over James Sprackling and he later also beat England number one veteran Sara Williams. Martin Adams also beat Williams and his win over Jimmy Walsh included a second-game 11-0 whitewash. Robert Hansell, who enjoyed a great day altogether, beat both Walsh and Sprackling and shared in a doubles win with Martin Adams.

 

Buoyed by the morning’s success, Cippenham went into the afternoon fixture with third-placed Finsbury full of hope. Shae found Finsbury’s number one Munib Ahmad too hot to handle in the opening set but Robert evened things up with a closely-fought victory over Emil Erkekov. Martin Adams put Cippenham back in front when he beat Abdullah Ubaidullah but Jonathan Lancy’s win over Martin Gray evened the scoreline up again. An uncharacteristic doubles loss put Cippenham on the back foot but Robert had reserved his best effort for last as he beat Ahmad 3-1 in determined fashion, reaching deep into his competitive resources. Two 3-0 games followed as Shae lost out to Ubaidullah but Martin Gray had an easy win over Erkekov to square the match at 4-4. Hopes were high for Cippenham as Martin Adams took the first two games from Lancry but his left-handed opponent then raised his standard to win the third, fourth and fifth games and Cippenham had lost the match 5-4 after a gallant effort.

 

With none of the three girls in the squad available to play, Cippenham introduced its newest young star, Louis Alexander, into the second team for this round of matches in National Division C-5. Louis took his chance superbly in the opening 6-3 win over Gwent and was nominated as player of the match after having beaten Mark Farrow and Sam Slatter and shared in a doubles win with Jaiden Caldeira. William Saint also contributed a brace of wins over Jack Fletcher and Toby Harwood while Cippenham’s other win was secured by Jamie Woodford over Harwood. This win over Gwent avenged a defeat to the same opponents in the first half of the season.

 

However, the afternoon match against Bristol Associates was a different story. This time it was Bristol who gained revenge for their earlier defeat to Cippenham by winning a disappointing encounter 7-2. William and Jamie won the doubles set but Cippenham’s only other win came when Jamie defeated Jake Tucker. The Cippenham second team remain second in their division but any hopes of the title are now gone.