The Men’s and Ladies’ first league tennis teams get a dose of reality and the Men’s Second Team also fall short

It was a pretty grim Sunday for  three of Pavilion & Avenue’s league tennis teams. The Men’s First Team and the Ladies First Team – both playing at home on the clay went down 3 – 1. The Men’s Second Team, heavily disguised as a bunch of old lags also went down to the David Lloyd Club in Worthing by the same score.

Here are the individual reports.

The  Men’s First Team have struggled to get players this Autumn, and after 3 matches we now have 3 points from 12 available. We have three matches after Christmas, when we hope to pick up enough points to avoid relegation.  Going down would be such a shame as we were promoted last season, and Div 4 is a good level for us when we can get a team out! The team have missed Young this season, who has returned to South Korea, but we have some great teenagers coming through to the squad who deserve a chance to play doubles and compete in this league. Jon Potter

The Ladies 1st team had a very hard match on Sunday with the opposing team, Amherst, putting out a very strong team. The first pairing, Gill and Janet, managed to beat their 2nd pair 6-4 6-3 although it was touch and go throughout. They just held their nerve with Janet even running for a ball at one point (ha!), making a cross court winner. With Lesley Anne back from injury, she paired up with Morna to rally hard and managed to get to a tie-break in the first set against their 2nd pair but then loosing their rhythm a bit. Their 1st pair were very strong, with Janet and Gill losing the 1st set 6-0 before actually seeing the ball! Then it was the case of ‘Let’s try and get a game at least’. However, just by upping their game a bit, they dug deep and slowly slowly managed to get to 6-all and very nearly won the 2nd set tie-break but unfortunately it was not to be.  It was an enjoyable game and good practice even if we lost 3-1.
Morna’s soup was amazing and worth battling 4 sets for! Thanks Morna. Gill Mastrangelo
The Men’s Second team were short of both their captain (Neil Moss) and some of their star players but still travelled in hope to the posh David Lloyd Club in Worthing. “Indoors on carpet lads – it can’t get better than this!” was Moss’s rallying call. “That much was true” slightly misquoting the Human League. Problem was that they had three very decent players and one very good player with a serve that had no place in their third team.  In the First round Colin and Des looked lively against their second pair but went down to some decent hitting and scuttling 6 – 1 and 6 – 4. Whilst Jason and Joel  (making his debut) got blown away by their first pair 6 – 1  and 6 – 2. In the second round Colin and Des fought hard but were taken out 6 – 2 and 6-2 again. However Jason and Joel made a decent fight of it losing the first set to a tie break, winning the second set 6 – 3 and then clinching the CTB 11 – 9 having been 8 – 4 down. Final Match score Lost 3 – 1. Jason Squire