Top work from Canoe Lake sees them record victories against Avenue and Warsash

The men stormed to a 4-0 win against Avenue although to contest was a lot closer than the scoreline suggests.

Lake's pairing of Stuart Gray and Terry Lawrence pulled off an excellent result to defeat the opposing top pair of Doug Galley and James Green.

The ladies match proved to be a much tighter affair against Warsash 2nds.

The first round of rubbers were shared but Lake’s second pair of Alison Wakelin and Clare Keiditsch took a crucial set off Jackie Gregory and Karen Downie to put Canoe Lake in command. Lake’s Amy Wright and Fiona Goode then inflicted a double bagel, 6-0 6-0, on Gregory and Downie leaving the reverse rubbers shared.

But the set won by Wakelin and Keiditsch proved crucial in giving Lake the winning draw points by five sets to four.

Avenue also had teams competing in ladies divisions one and three while the men participated in division two and three matches.

Travelling to Warsash, the ladies shared the opening round of rubbers with both team’s top pairs comfortably outplaying the second strings.

At that stage Avenue had a two-game advantage which was further after the first sets of the reverse rubbers.

Although that was as good as it got for the visitors as Karen Kirwan and Nicky Eldridge fought back to take the second set against Anna Newman and Evie Howarth. They eventually claimed the the rubber on a match tie-break as Warsash took the match 3-1.

Avenue ladies 4ths suffered defeat by the same margin as they took on Lee 4ths.

Jenny Ward and Mary Robinson restored some pride, beating Lee’s Deanne Tarrant and Jacqui Hyde after a match tie-break, on the back of both Avenue's opening pairs losing out.

Angela Bryson and Michelle Voisey so nearly snatched a point for Avenue before going down in the final rubber after a match tie-break.

There was good news for the club's men's 3rds, who cruised to a comfortable 4-0 win at Alverstoke.

Top pair Rob Mort and David Spink lost just eight games over the four sets they played while team-mates Dennis Greenwood and Kris Dymond overcame Alverstoke’s top pair of Jon Russell and Rick Wheeler in two closely fought sets.

Avenue men's 2nds also lost 3-1, going down to Fishbourne.

The ladies meeting between Stubbington and Southsea threw up an unusual scorecard.

Helen Shelton and Ashley Law won both of their rubbers comfortably - for the loss of just 10 games - to put Southsea in a strong position.

But the other pair could only muster three games in the four sets played. That meant the rubbers were shared 2-2 but Stubbington were able to claim the winning draw as they lost seven fewer games overall.