Sydenham Tennis Club (Squash & Tennis)
Lawrie Park Road • Sydenham, London • SE26 6ET
Tel: 020 8778 4217
After a quiet start in the quarter finals in which the top four seeds, Bradley Sawyer, John Rowe, Ian Moody and Alastair Putt eased their way past Pete Edwards, Tony Moyes, Simon Taylor and me without undue difficulty (you could leave out “undue” in the case of my match against Bradley), the tournament sprang to life in the semi-finals.
On court 2, Ian had the task of overcoming the 9 point handicap differential between him and Alastair, who seemed to have prepared for the contest by studying Bradley’s skills as a retriever of apparently lost points. In the end, however, he managed to win 15 – 7, 15 -10.
On court 1, which was played on level terms as both players had the same handicap, John moved in the first game into what looked like a commanding lead, reaching 13- 8 before Bradley, in a late surge reduced the final gap to 3 points, losing 12 – 15. In “two game” matches that end at one game all the result is determined by the aggregate of points over the two games, so this meant that to win the match Bradley would have both to win the second game and to score four points more than John. Once again, however, John moved into a handsome lead, which at one point was as wide as 14-6. But Bradley then staged an extraordinary revival, reaching 11-14. If he could reach 14 – 14 and then win all three points in the game tie break, he would win the game by 3 points, thus ending with an aggregate score over the two games equal to John’s. This, according to the match rules, which were pinned to the noticeboard in imitation of the way Luther’s 95 Articles were nailed to the church wall at Wittenberg, would trigger a match tie break, which Bradley could win if he scored a further three points before John. Could John have closed out this possibility by easing off when he had 13 points, allowing Bradley to win the game 15 – 13 but thus lose the match? No, because, if Bradley reached 14 – 13 he would have been serving and could have served “out” to engineer the 14- 14 score that would have opened up the possibility of a double tie break. If John could have worked all this out whilst engaged in one of the many marathon rallies that preceded almost every point in this match, the civil service would surely have realised that he was wasted in his current position and that he should at once be transferred to Downing Street to help Mrs May in the sort out the, simple by comparison, complexities of Brexit. Sadly, for the historians of the Sydenham Racketball tournaments – and perhaps of the UK’s relations with the EU, John cut the gordian knot by snuffing out Bradley’s revival and winning the game 15 – 11 and hence the match.
The two finals were both played best of three and therefore did not offer the same opportunities for interesting calculations.
In the Bronze final Bradley had to contend with the same wide handicap differential as John did in the semi final and Alastair’s retrieval skills, whilst still not quite matching his, improved even over those he had displayed against Ian. The result was a very tight match, which was eventually won by Bradley 15-13, 17-16, so Bradley won the “bronze” cup and Alastair and won a change in his -3 handicap to – 6. This will apply in the next racketball league, which I will set up later today before handing over the role of organiser to Alastair.
In the main final Ian, (as he did the last time he met John in a final back in 2017) moved quickly into a large lead in the first game and ended by winning it 15-7. And he appeared to have learned from that previous encounter (when John struck back by taking the second game easily before winning in the third) because he kept at roughly level pegging with John until the score reached 13 all. Even then, on the balcony the punters were making John the favourite to win the match but Ian managed to take the next two points, and so to win the match two games to love.
I should like to thank all the contestants for making this the most exciting of the racketball tournaments I have organised.
David Roberts
01/04/2019
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