Sproughton 3 against Stowmarket 3

For a division 8 match, it seemed to be better. Today was a hard gruelling 9 sets in which the final score was a 3-6 loss. The Sproughton pairings were: M. Chappell and L. Barnes, M.Tallent (me) and A.Chappell, and finally J.Tallent and B. Hart. The Stowmarket players (in their pairs) were: M. Clements and K.Simpson, J.Spitzer and K. Vincent, and H. Hudson and L. Carrol.

In three sets in which Luke Barnes and Matthew Chappell played... Were lost. In which they were the scores of 2-8, 1-8, and 0-8. They played as first pair meaning the hardest match was first, and in that game they played the best with the score of 2-8. The first pair was Stowmarkets best as one of their players on that pair could do the best "angle-dropshot-volley" that I've ever seen. Their second game was 1-8 against the 2nd pair. That combination was a steady, consistent pair that was playing much better against Luke, and Matthew. In the last game, (suprisingly) they played the worst which was a 0-8 loss. The last pair ( I thought) was the... "consistent" pair.

Our second pair of M.Tallent and A. Chappell had probably the most confusing result in the history of game scores. The second pair who we played first was our best game. The score was 5-8, and from being 2-6 down this was a good score. I'd say the motto of that game was "The match is never over until the final point is played." Our second game was against the third pair which we lost 8-0. The first odd 3 to 5 games were all dueces going on. But, as the score says... We lost ALL of the dueces in a frenzy of bad shots, and net cords going against us. Our third but final game was the 1st pair in which we lost 8-1. To myself I think the game we won was a forfeit in which the other pair just didn't bother to play well. Either that or we just played great, that we weren't doing the in the rest of the games.

The third - and final pair - of J.Tallent and B. Hart (suprisingly?) won every match. First pair was against the 3rd pair which was a 8-2 win. I personally don't know how they managed to win AND only drop two games. The second match was against the number one pair which they won 8-1. I again don't know how they did it. The pair tell me that the other pair didn't play so well as they did against our 2nd and 1st pair as no "angle-dropshot-volley" shots were played. I still don't know how it happened. The third game was against their 2nd pair in which they won 8-2. Ben Hart from where I was standing was almost falling asleep. J.Tallent (yet again) was playing at the best of his standard and winning 99% of the points.

The team average age was almost 14. Until my Dad joined to make it 19.5. In our defence we didn't play that bad, but on the other hand we could've played better or more consistently.

There is a team photo here (Image 2).

-Matthew Tallent.

P.S The "or more consistently." part was edited by John Tallent.