Holders Both Crash Out Of Carnation Cup

Last year’s winners of the Carnation Cup both went out at the first hurdle although both Nigel Stent and Jeff Reay were paired with different partners in this year’s handicapped competition. Stents playing partner this year was Chris Tilstone and they were up against Erlands Skels and Neil Penny and Skels and Penny soon raced into a 2-0 lead when Skels defeated Tilstone and Penny beat Stent only for Stent and Tilstone to hit back by taking the doubles match. In the reverse singles Penny narrowly beat Tilstone to seal the match 3-1 with Stent beating Skels in the last game of the match to salvage some pride and to only end up losing the match by a 3-2 score line.
In his match Jeff Reay teamed up with Ted Rizzo to take on Mark Sansom and Neil Fisher and in fairness Reay and Rizzo took a bit of a battering in a 5-0 defeat losing all but one of their games in straight sets.
Chris Cattell and Scott Lee made it through to the quarter finals when they defeated Jim Westwood and Alan Wilson 4-1 with Lee being the Player Of The Match as he won both of his singles games against Westwood and Wilson before teaming up with Cattell to win the doubles. Cattell also beat Wilson before losing to Westwood in the final singles game of the night.
Another pairing who made it through to the next round are Kartik Lakhani and Perry Bradford who were involved in a close match with Pete Hodgson and Dean Marsh which went right down to the last game of the night. Lakhani got himself and Bradford off to a great start when he defeated Marsh but then Bradford couldn’t repeat Lakhani’s feat as he lost to Hodgson which made the match all square. Marsh and Hodgson then went and won the doubles game to take a 2-1 lead before Bradford levelled the math up again by comfortably beating Marsh. So, it came down to the final singles game to decide the outcome of the match which Lakhani just managed to win to clinch a place in the quarter finals with a 3-2 victory.
Another match that went down to the wire was between Ben Swain & Derek Piper and James Wormwell & Kay Wilson with Wormwell starring as he won both his singles games before helping Wilson to win the doubles to give him and his team mate the three wins needed to go through.
Clive Eden and Luke Barraclough had what looked like on paper a tough match ahead against Peter Eyre and Mick Potter but managed to go through by 3 games to 1 with the last singles match not being played. Eden got them of to a good start by beating Potter but Eyre levelled things up by defeating Barraclough in straight sets. Eden and Barraclough then took the doubles before Barraclough also beat Potter to give them an unassailable 3-1 lead.
Andy Lee and Cliff Briggs had a great match with Helmuth Osborne and Andy Kirkland and after Osborne won the first singles game of the night against Briggs it looked like Lee and Briggs were going to be on the back foot for the rest of the match. However, Lee then beat Kirkland in the next singles game before he joined Briggs in the doubles rubber to beat Osborne and Kirkland in straight sets to take a 2-1 advantage into the last two singles games of the match. Briggs then beat Kirkland to seal their victory before Lee put the icing on the cake by defeating Osborne to take the match 4-1.
Although this week was designated to the Carnation Cup in the fixture list there was one re-arranged league game that took place and it could have some bearing on as to where the Division One title ends up. After beating DTH Redlands Fluffy Toys last week DTH Redlands Monsters were hoping for a repeat performance again this week as they were up against another of the teams vying for the top spot in Redlands Roosters, but it wasn’t to be as the Monsters got mashed suffering their first defeat of the season with the Roosters leapfrogging the Monsters into top spot. Ernest Mpundu was the player of the match as he defeated all three Monsters in Orestas Riauba, Valentinas Riauba and Paul Johnson inflicting Johnson’s first defeat of the season. Another player losing his 100% record was the Roosters Tom McIntosh who was beaten by Johnson, but he did beat both Riauba brothers and had a hand in clinching the doubles match with Mpundu. Steve Fox also got in on the act as he defeated Valentinas Riauba to add a vital singles win in a 7-3 victory.