On Thursday, the Chiswick Men’s team played Sudbury Hill I, a team we hadn’t played before, but whose results so far meant they were strong contenders for promotion, whereas we were looking to avoid relegation, having failed to win any matches but somehow finding ourselves in mid-table due to picking up points against even the stronger teams.

In the first round, we took an early lead: Barnaby and Callum won their set against Dermot and Marcin 6-2, and Riccardo and Tristan won a good long set against Aman and Jerry 7-5, Ed and Frank losing to oppo first pair Ed and Luca 1-6.

Score after the first round: Chiswick 4- Sudbury Hill 2.

In the second round, it was Frank and Ed who won their set against Dermot and Marcin 6-3, while the other two pairs lost their sets 4-6 and 0-6 respectively.

Score after the second round, all square: Chiswick 6- Sudbury Hill 6.

In the final round, Frank and Ed hit their stride, defeating Aman and Jerry 6-3, 6-1, Frank pummeling the opponents with strong groundstrokes and putting away volleys well at the net, while Ed hoisted lobs/ moonballs and generally broke the opponents’ morale. The other two match-ups were close, but unfortunately both went the way of the visitors: Barnaby and Callum losing 3-6, 4-6 to Ed and Luca in a high quality match, while Riccardo and Tristan went down 4-6, 3-6 to Dermot and Marcin.

Final score: Chiswick 10- Sudbury Hill 14.

We actually finished just in time, the drizzle was getting heavier as we headed inside for drinks and supper (gluten free pizza and salad). 

This was a narrow loss but an excellent performance. We were a whisker away from at least a draw against one of the top teams in our division, so there was disappointment, but we can take heart from the level of play. All members of the team played well but Man of the Match was undoubtedly Frank, playing his first match for us this season. His solid, consistent groundstrokes, well-placed topspin serves and aggressive net play were top quality. What's more, he did the washing up and took away one of the rubbish sacks!👏👏👏

The result means we’ve played 6, lost 5, drawn 1. It doesn’t sound great, however, we’ve managed to get 54 points, and, depending on how Hartswood did against Twickenham last week (it hasn't been uploaded to the website yet), we should have a fairly achievable target in our last match to stay up.

Well done guys and let’s keep up this level of performance in our last match!