The Club Handicap Singles, played for the Michael Jones Trophy was played the week commencing Monday 13th June. We had a very strong entry of 32, split into 8 boxes, played throughout the week to suit availability, culminating in the knockout stages on Sunday.
After a busy morning playing the round of 16 matches, we got to the Quarter Final stage just after lunch.
Bruce Newman and Tom Morris took to the court to kick us off. After a very bright start from Tom, Bruce was then able to get control of the match and apply constant pressure, forcing Tom into errors that he hadn’t made earlier that day. Having grasped the handicap, Bruce ran out a 6-2 winner.
Next up was Angela Probyn and Jan Fuller, who played out a superbly friendly competitive match! Lots of laughs and some good rallies, meant for a very enjoyable match, with Angela playing her way into an early lead. She was able to keep her neck in front, and took the match 6-3.
Paul Beanlands and James Gareh then played out a superb 6-5 match! Neither player was able to create any daylight during the whole match, and whilst it was James who got to 5 first, it was Paul who got to 6!
Nick Geere & Oliver Rigby completed the Quarter Final line-up and shared the first 4 games in a very close start. Nick was then able to pin Oliver down and take control of the set, reeling off 4 straight games to make his way into the Semi Finals with a 6-2 victory.
The Semi Finals saw both ends of the handicap scale being played out. Angela Probyn played Bruce Newman, with a handicap difference of rec 30, owe 40 - 1 serve banned tambour, quite the mountain for Bruce. Having hit the tambour in the first game, he realised that that strategy was destined to fail, and started getting the ball into the winning gallery corner. Adapting your game and fighting everything that comes naturally to you is a very difficult task, but unfortunately for Angela, Bruce was adapting extremely well and produced a practically flawless display. Angela was trying desperately to get the ball into the galleries to get the serve, but couldn’t quite find her target and Bruce punished everything that didn’t go in. 6-2 to Bruce and he was our first finalist.
The second Semi Final was Paul Beanlands v Nick Geere. Nick had been able to get chases out of the corners against his previous opponents, but Paul was flying around the court volleying as much as he possibly could, and volleying it well. The time pressure that Nick was under started to show as a few uncharacteristic errors crept in, seeing the scoreboard tick over in Paul’s favour. Playing with the freedom of receiving handicap as well, Paul took control of the match, playing very positively, and making his way into the final with a 6-2 victory.
The handicap in the final was in Paul’s favour, receive ½ 30, owe 15. Bruce adopted the same strategy that he’d used for the whole day: Get to the service end, stay there, and soak up all of the pressure. It had worked all day so far, so would it work again? Things couldn’t have started any better for him as he won the spin and elected to serve! Bruce was able to dominate the service end for the entirety of the match. Paul was cutting balls off, volleying into the corners and putting Bruce under pressure, but his retrieval was superb. Paul was not playing badly, he just didn’t have an answer to Bruce’s reliability from the service end. In a very good final, the scoreboard didn’t do it justice as Bruce Newman became the 2022 Michael Jones Handicap Singles Winner 6-1.
A big thank to everybody who played throughout the week, it was a very well supported event and we hope that that is a sign of things to come for the club events moving forwards!
