Blake’s of ‘the Hollow’ 125 Years Celebration Spring Tennis League
Monday Night
Week 2 of the Enniskillen Spring Tennis League saw the Perfect Pints settle quickly in their match against the Serving Aces winning 3 of the 4 mixed doubles for a 31-17 halfway lead. Star performer for the pints was JR Dundas winning both his mixed and men’s doubles 10-2 on the night while Jenny Cruikshank showed a welcome return to form hitting a number of clean winners in her mixed doubles win with Seamus O’Connell. Although the Serving Aces did recover in the second round of doubles it was not enough to prevent a 54-42 win for the Perfect Pints.
The second match saw the Pool Sharks looking for their first win and they were well in contention at the halfway stage trailing by only 2 games. However, at this point, the Chardonnays turned on the power winning all 4 doubles matches to take a comfortable 56-40 victory. A key win for James Wilson and, fresh off the slopes, Ollie McShea in the men’s doubles put the Chardonnays in control but it was Martin Hamblin and Claude Bersot’s convincing 9-3 win over Matt Dillon and James Morrison in the closing match which created the winning margin.
Wednesday Night
Having had their round one match rained off last week Sheila Colville’s Cocktail Knights went keenly into battle, in Wednesday’s opening match, against the Irish Coffees. At the end of the mixed doubles only 4 games separated the teams with valiant performances from Coffees Hugh Maguire and Bernie Hall, who had a resounding 9-3 victory over John Griffin and Josie Gillen only to see the tables turned as Knights, Brian Donaldson and Vanessa McBrien(sub), secured a 9-3 victory over Martin Dillon and Lisa Greeves(sub). With the Knights winning 3 of the 4 doubles games everything rested on the last men’s doubles match where a very strong performance from Irish Coffees pairing Martin Dillon and Iain Kennedy resulted in a crucial 10-2 win, tipping the match scales in favour of the Irish Coffees, by 51-45.
Tightest match of the week had Martin Sharkey’s Level 7 taking a 50-46 victory over Liz McGuinness’s Snug Bugs.. The match opened with an 8-4 win for Level 7 regulars Andrea Crawford and captain Martin over Snug Bugs Liz Murphy and Scott Gilbride, who was making his league debut at long last, and it was this 4 game advantage that was to separate the teams at the finish. All other 7 matches on the night were separated by no more than 2 games with three matches finishing tied 6 games apiece. Toughest match of the night had Scott and Daire Dillon tied with Martin and Matthew Duffy as all four players volleyed for their lives. Also starting his league career was Tony Ringland who led both his matches before being clawed back for two draws on the night.
