It was round 4 in the Erne Business Equipment Spring League at Enniskillen Tennis Club.
Monday Night
The opening match gave the Markers an opportunity to draw a line under their heavy 59-37 opening week defeat at the hands of Sonja´s Erasers. However, despite a master class of under arm serving from Donal Burns in the opening mixed doubles encounter the Markers fell just short, ultimately going under 49-47. Given that both teams featured two substitutes, each leading to several 7-5 adjusted scores, it was no surprise that matters went down to the final ladies singles and with new pairing of Angela Randall and substitute Mary Davidson for the Markers both carrying excellent form in from their earlier mixed matches hopes were high that the Markers could overcome the Erasers and win the match. However even though Angela and Mary played strong and accurate tennis they still found themselves rubbed out 7-5 by the heavy hitting Sandra Parker and Vivienne Kells giving the narrow overall victory to the Erasers.
Second tie of the night had Moira McAdam´s Staplers looking to repeat their early season victory over Daniel Redmond´s Punchers and they got their usual explosive start with a 9-3 victory for their number one seeds Dominic and Ita. They were then able to maintain this momentum with two 7-5 victories and a 6-6 draw to take a comfortable 29-19 lead into the doubles. However the third and fourth seeded Punchers,Kevin Burns and Andrew Sheridan, secured an 8-4 victory in the men´s doubles and when this was quickly followed by a similar 8-4 win for the Punchers Lisa Greaves and Catherine Sloan in the ladies doubles, the Staplers were reeling. A pulsating match between Punchers top men Daniel and Kevin Corrigan against Staplers Dominic and James Wilson, which could have gone either way, eventually finished 6 games apiece and when Ita and Moira beat Punchers Heather Guy and Ann Elliott 7-5 in another close battle the Staplers had just about managed to hold everything together for a 50-46 victory.
Wednesday Night
After sharing the spoils in their opening round match it was no surprise that tonight´s match between the Binders and Dispensers turned out to be a close affair. Starting well with a classy 8-4 win for Innes Redmond and Liz Murphy in the top seeded mixed doubles the Binders were able to build on this with a battling 8-4 win for Sean Bogue and Brenda Davis in the second seed pairings. However with the Dispensers third seed pairing of Martin Hamblin and Mary Griffin continuing their fine form shown over the last number of weeks with a 9-3 victory, there were only two games between the teams at the halfway mark. Into the doubles matches, no matter how hard they fought the Dispensers were unable to break down the Binders lead. First up Jimmy Renfrew and Hugh Maguire fought out a tremendous 6-6 draw with Innes and Sean and then Helen Cooper and Ruth Armstrong battled to the end against Liz and Brenda only to lose out by the minimum 7-5. Dispensers Martin Hamblin and Brendan Duffy also lost out by the narrowest margin to sub Stephen Kettyles and Brian Donaldson meaning a second victory for Mary, this time partnered by sub Ruth Elliot was not enough to rescue the match leaving the Binders 50-46 victors.
Last tie of the week had the Copiers still searching for their first win of the league although they only trailed tonight´s opponents the Toners by 8 games before the start of this match. With the benefit of two strong substitutes in Marshall Coalter and Susannah Hughes Jordan, the Copiers were able to maintain the upper hand at the top end of the draw managing to win all four matches by an adjusted 7-5 score line. When combined with two further 7-5 victories for the Copiers Kieran Hannan, firstly with Sheila Colville in the mixed and then with Roman Stefanyan in the men´s doubles, you would think that the Copiers had done enough to secure the win. However a superb 9-3 victory for Johnny Guette and Jennifer Kelly in the final mixed and an equally comfortable 9-3 win for Bridie McCaffrey and Jennifer in the ladies doubles had the Toners celebrating the most unlikely of results, a draw at 48 games apiece.
Standings after week four of nine with the top two to qualify from each group are:
Monday Nights: Erasers 209 games, Staplers 200, Markers 183, Punchers 176
Wednesday Night: Dispensers 201, Binders 193, Toners 191, Copiers 183
