This team gave us a heavy defeat last time, so could we improve now that we had gained more league experience? Could Derek capitalise on the return to fitness of his dodgy shoulder? Would John recover from an overdose of pie’n’peas and how would Robin perform after food and beverage excesses in Hong Kong. The simple answer is that we were defeated 6-3, but with some close matches.

Set one, between John Korner and Robin was brief and brutal, with Korner’s consistency steaming through against Robin’s erratic play to win 11-4, 11-0, and 11-3. Set 2 saw Phil Parry against John, with John winning 3-0, fooling Phil with his serve and playing with patience. Phil executed one of two of his trade mark forehand smashes, but clearly hasn’t yet recovered for his luxurious cruise recently when he accidentally has the last waltz with the captain of the cruise ship.

Set three pitted Andrew Whitely against Derek. In a close encounter, Whitley won 3-2. Derek showed patches of patient defence and flashes of aggression, but Whitely ultimately held his form together. The final game kept the tension right to the bitter end with Whitely winning 14-12. It was a good fight, but ended in favour of Sowerby.

We can swiftly pass the next set, between Parry and Robin, 11-2, 11-4 and 11-2 saying it all; with a number of suicidal shots showing evidence that the will to live was being lost. Set 5, Korner V Derek was another close encounter, not quite Star Wars, with Korner winning 3-2. Derek won the first two, 11-5 and 11-4, by a combination of steady play to match Korner’s patient approach, plus some well executed smashes. But Korner fought back, tempting Derek with some high balls, which Derek was not always able to put away. During game 3, Korner executed a bizarre serve where he seemed to totally lose control over bat and ball, with ball failing to clear anything. It might be a good idea to video all these matches, because this clip could have been a word-wide hit on youtube, perhaps ending up with Korner receiving a makeover sponsored by the Table Tennis Association.

Moving on to set 6, John defeated Whitely 3-1, with John’s patience being rewarded. His smashes worked better and Whitley did not attack when opportunities arose. In the last game, Whitely appeared to lose concentration. Final score: 11-7 (J), 11-6 (W), 11-8 (J) and 11-7 (J).

Derek met Parry in Match 7, with Derek eventually winning 3-2, after a hard-fought set. After another strange serve from Parry, he executed some effective b/h smashes to win game 1, 11-7. But Derek fought back to win game 2 11-6. Both played inconsistently in game 3, with a funny serve from Parry and some wild smashes from Derek. However, he edged ahead to win 12-10. Parry pegged him back at 11-7 and Derek finally exerted his authority to close the match 11-6.

Robin played much more effectively in set 8 against Whitely, losing 11-8, 11-7 and 11-4. He won some serves but failed to handle some Whitely spin and wasted points on some failed serves. Although the match had been well lost by this time, set 9 saw an epic struggle with Korner beating John 3-2. Korner won G1 by 11-6, with steady high returns which encouraged John to smash, not always with success. G2 saw some long rallies, with Kornner winning 11-9. Was John tiring? Well, no, it seems, because he fought back to win G3 by 11-9, with some tricky serves and some gutsy play. He continued this pattern in G4, with some aggressive smashes winning key points. In the decider, John missed some smashes, Korner pegged away with his steady returns, it became tense at 8-8, and then Korner inched his way ahead to win 11-8.

The match was played with good humour and sportsmanship, with no eccentric TT dress being reported except yet another Hong Kong rugby shirt. Some players took ages to retrieve balls from the far away courts and we were ready to report them as missing. However, Popps did show an improvement on our earlier matches, and three of our defeats could easily have gone the other way. The message is: keep pegging away, learn during our coaching sessions and develop strict monk-like life-styles. Any chance of that? Answers on a post card to Mieszek.

RT