Coronation and drizzle decimate Portsmouth Tennis League programme

In division three, Ryde Mead condemned Avenue 3 to a second successive defeat with a 3-1 win.

One division lower, Southsea continued their impressive start to the season with a second successive 4-0 win, this time against Alverstoke.

John Kemble and Anthony Boland lost the first set to Tony Norish and Chris Titterington, but that was the only blemish on Southsea’s afternoon as they went on to win the next eight sets.

But they can expect stern opposition in the division from Chichester’s third team, which is mainly made up of up-and-coming younger players.

Young they may be, but they were far too good for the rather-less-young Warsash 3 team!

Their top pair, Joe McLarnon and Toby Jackson, conceded just five games in the four sets they played. Syd Quin and Michael Isaacs saved some face for the Warsash veterans when they beat Barney McLarnon and Diego Savage-Meléndez after a match tie-break to prevent a whitewash.

A late result from the week before showed Southsea’s mixed 2 team had clocked up an impressive win against Avenue 5.

Top pair Linda Swinburne and Sanjay Sunar won both their rubbers in straight sets. Andy Bowbrick and Helen Nelson were forced into a three-set marathon in the final rubber but they prevailed 7-6 to claim a 4-0 clean sweep.

The weather had cleared enough by midweek to allow four more matches to be completed.

In division one of the ladies’ midweek masters, Ryde Lawn 1 followed up the previous week’s 3-1 win over reigning champions Avenue with another 3-1 success, this one against last summer’s runners-up Chichester.

Having beaten last year’s champions and runners-up, does this suggest that Ryde are going to return to the winners’ rostrum for the first time in a while?

Wickham opened their division two ladies’ masters programme by edging a very close match against previously unbeaten Warsash by three rubbers to one, thanks to a crucial match tie-break win for Maggie Allan and Carol Duckworth in their rubber against Sarah Gary and Sheena Quinn.

What looked like developing into a really interesting match was spoilt by an unfortunate weather intervention.

Swanmore and Lee played through persistent drizzle to complete the first round of rubbers, to ensure that a match result could be declared after their efforts, only to find that when the rubbers, sets and games were added up, everything was exactly equal and the match was declared a tie, with the points also shared, 1.5 each!

Lee’s men had rather more success with the weather. They had completed their men’s masters match against Fishbourne well before the rain reached their home ground.

The 4-0 scoreline flattered them somewhat, as the visitors’ top pair, Rob Moore and Phil Sowden, took both the Lee pairs to match tie-breaks, only to lose both of them!