Sobo with a Heavy Heart

It is with a heavy heart……

The Semi Finals (one of them anyway) pitted the current champions, Surrey H&RC against the might of the Benz Bavarian sponsored Duffield team. The latter didn’t make it to the semis last year, in no small measure because their numero uno, Nick Matthew got himself injured. Nick was back for this one and there were rumours that his presence would be the deciding factor in this nail biter. Whatever!

The line up for the home side was, in reverse order, Vicky Botwright, Captain Garner (a late replacement for Ben Ford), Davide Bianchetti, Peter Barker and Wael El Hindi.

For the visitors, Tania Bailey, Joel Hinds, Andy Whipp, Joey Barrington and Nick Matthew.

First up, the ladies put on a very decent show. I’ve never seen Tania play live before but guessed on reputation and a recent win against a strong field in KL that our Vicky would be in for a tough one here. And so it proved…. Vicky, despite extricating herself from the rigours of the WISPA tour last year, is still very fit, very mobile and a very good player. I was impressed with Tania though. She appeared to do all the right things keeping Vicky almost constantly under pressure and making the home girl work hard for every point she lost and twice as hard for every point she won.

A close 3-0 (7, 7 and 9) but nevertheless, the home team were one nil down.

On the “other” main court, the youth of Joel Hinds appeared to be telling against Captain Garner. At two love down in this crucial tie, it appeared quite possibly all over. A tie break in the 3rd that just went the way of the home player told the story of just how close this one was. With a sniff of a chance, Tim came out for the fourth and dug in…and dug in….and kept on digging in. He gave away virtually nothing free picking up the majority of Joel’s very good attacking shorts and returning them with interest to take the fourth 11-9.

And so to the decider and a monumental effort from Tim kept the scores pretty much on par through the latter stages of this game. Not to take anything away from Joel; he did all he could to force this one pushing Tim all over the court but the home player just wouldn’t lie down and ……..eventually….ran out a deserved winner 11-9 to much clapping, stamping of feet and general heckling form the sizeable home support.

One game all in matches and Surrey now strong favourites to go through to the final…..

…….that is, until Andy Whipp turned up….grrrrr…. J

I didn’t see any of the 3rd string match between Davide and Andy Whipp. On rankings at least, the home player was expected to win this one but at one game all, it sounded like Davide got most frustrated with the marking and lost a very tight tie break 15-17 in the 3rd to go 1-2 down.

The fourth was another tight affair with much frustration with the marking, from BOTH players. The away player stayed strong though to close it, and the match out on another tie break, 10-12. Well played Andy Whipp.

The pendulum swings back in a northerly direction………

The 2nd string tie between home player, Peter Barker and Joey Barrington didn’t take very long at all. Joey, just back from Egypt did well to extend the rallies and attacked with purpose and a fair amount of success in the first but once the home player had taken the first 11-7, authority was exerted and the tie was soon wrapped up 11-6, 11-4.

At the time that one finished, Messrs El Hindi and Matthew had already been engaged in battle with the first game deservedly going the way of the home player, 11-4. Could a shock result be on the cards?

No.

Nick showed some real class in this one. Wael played extremely well in my opinion; he was forced to just to stay with Nick but the away player gave very little away. The result was a fantastic display of controlled squash that got tighter and tighter with each point won by whomever could keep up the pressure or play an ungettable winner (frequently, both were needed to win a solitary point!)

All told, the away player ran out a deserved 3-1 winner and with the victory, the Duffield team took the spoils and a place in the final.

On a personal note, even though we lost and are compelled to hand back the trophy now, this was the best PSL tie I’ve ever had the privilege of watching. All the matches were excellent exhibitions of squash player who deserved it the most. Well played to all and good luck to Duffield in the final.

You better win it now!

David Sobo