Round 7 Review
Week 7 of the Enniskillen Tennis Spring League was played out in contrasting weather with Monday’s players having to contend with wind and ice while Wednesday’s players enjoyed perfect tennis weather.
Monday Night
The nights first match pitted current leaders Louise’s Slammers against nearest rivals Maxine’s Magicians. As expected there was very little to separate the teams as all four mixed doubles matches finished tied 6-6. While the competition was heating up on court the temperature off court was rapidly cooling leading to cautious play all round. With Maxine’s Magicians coping better with the icy conditions Louise’s Slammers starting to slip back. The key magic came from both men’s pairings of Donal Burns and Paul Lendrum and Alex Knowles and Reggie Ferguson who each recorded 8-4 wins to help the Magicians to a 53-43 win, closing the gap at the top to just 7 games with two rounds remaining.
Unfortunately the night’s second match had to be cancelled as conditions further deteriorated.
Wednesday Night
In contrast to sleet and ice, Wednesday night’s tennis was played out in perfectly dry weather. Relishing the conditions, Meek’s Marvels wasted no time in establishing a winning position with three convincing wins in the mixed doubles to leave them 33-15 up at the half way stage. Despite 9 of the 12 games going to deuce, the subs pairing of Andy Elliott and Ann Mooney were able to push through for the all-important 11-1 win and this combined with Dominic Burns and Enid Redmond’s superbly crafted 9-3 win left the final result in no doubt. While scores improved for the Kissin’ Cousins in the doubles the Marvels, captained by Nick Meeke, went on to win by a dominant 59-37 giving them every expectation of making the league semis at the end of this month.
The week’s final match further consolidated the positions of the top teams as Lizzie’s Lobbers stormed to an 8 game wine over Redmond’s rockets keeping the leaders in sight at 7 games but more importantly giving themselves a 22 game cushion for the second semi-final qualifying place. Undoubtedly, the seeds of victory were sown in the top two mixed doubles where captain Liz Murphy and Clive Funston were too strong for sub John Griffin and Janet Love winning 9-3 at level one backup up strongly by their level two teammates Hugh Maguire and Heather Williams who were too accurate for Marius Blake and Liz McGuinness winning 8-4. Clive and Hugh went on to add an 8-4 win in their men’s doubles to leave the match out of the reach of the Rockets.
