Week 2 December

Action in the Newbury and District Badminton Leagues this week was dominated by Men's doubles. In the top flight, Kennet A maintained their impressive start to the season as they played host to Wantage. The visitors made a promising start as top pair Brown and Berkeley overcame Kennet's Chambers and Tompkins 11-21, 19-21. Kennet's power-house pairing of Pennington and Bazin were involved in two of the next three rubbers though, and before long the hosts had pushed into a 3-1, clinching the crucial fourth rubber against Brown and Berkeley (21-18, 21-17). Hitchcock and Heath won their second rubber of the evening to take Kennet into a 4-1 lead, allowing Chambers and Tompkins to clinch the points in the next by beating Clive Beasley and John Harrow 21-16, 21-18. The one down-side for Kennet was the defeat of Hitchcock and Heath in rubber 7 - their first taste of defeat this season. The final score was 7-2.

In the same division Shaw B faced a daunting trip to St Mary's, and any suggestion of a surprise score was soon snuffed out as The Saints stormed into a 3-0 lead in double quick time. The score was 6-0 before Shaw's Keith Watts and Trevor Poore managed to win a set, but they ended losing the rubber 21-18, 17-21, 21-17 to Phil Debois and Kevin Digweed as St Mary's pushed on to claim the expected 9-0 whitewash.

St Mary's good week continued in Division 3, as their second string were twice on the road and twice returned home with thumping 0-9 victories. Downland's B team were the first to be put to the sword, as the depth in strength of The Saints' team allowed them to drop just a single set in the whole match, with the Mike Nichols / Ilya Goldberg and Clive Evans / Chi Yeung partnerships in particularly fine form. Five days later, Kennet C were the hosts, and this match followed a remarkably similar pattern, the same 6 players from St Mary's allowing the hosts to win just one set all evening. Matthew Benians and Nic Gerrard set The Saints on their way, with an 11-17, 17-21 victory over Richard Hayes and Phil McGoun, and with Nichols, Goldberg, Evans and Yeung waiting in the wings, there was only going to be one winner.

In the top Mixed Division, Kennet visited Cannons - always a tough assignment. The match started in tremendous style, with the first two rubbers going to three sets. In the first, Andrea Woods and Chris Tompkins put in a fine performance for Kennet to win 16-21, 21-13, 19-21. In the second rubber, Cannon's top pair of Claire Struthers-Semple and Per Lauridsen then had a great tussle with Kathryn Meakin and Steve Pennington before finally clinching a 15-21, 21-11, 21-12 victory. Kennet came storming back in the third set though, with Denise Adlington and Steve Hitchcock taking them back into the lead. This turned out to be a false dawn for the visitors though, as the hosts finally got into their stride, with Lisa Campbell and Pedro Cosa clinching the match in rubber 7 by beating Woods and Tompkins 21-16, 21-19. Cannons eventually pushed on to a comfortable 7-2 victory.