First game of the night was Andy McNabb against Rob Clayton. Rob won the first two sets 12-10 and 11-5 to start our nerves jangling a bit. Andy came back well to win the next two sets (sorry I don't have the card to hand so can't remember every score) and came out 3 points better off overall.
Next on the table was Andy Evans vs. Stuart Simpson. Stuart played really well but Andy's consistency and looping managed to overcome Stuart's pimples and Andy came out the winner 44 points to 22 to give Prestwich D a good boost.
Steve H faced Aubrey H next up and Steve showed no mercy, beating Aubrey in every set to narrow the gap overall.
Andy Evans vs. Rob Clayton was the next game and again Rob played very well, mixing up defense and attack with his pimples. Although he managed to take one set off Andy it was 16-14 and Andy made up for it in the next set by winning 11-3. Overall the difference in points was a 9 point gain to Prestwich D.
A similar pattern continued until Steve H played Rob Clayton and again Rob managed to take a set from the division 2 player but again it was 12-10 and so didn't make a big dent in the prestwich points total.
With 4 matches left to play Maccabis points advantage was down to just 23. A win in every set would result in a prestwich D victory.
Andy Evans faced off against Aubrey Huller. Andy had overheard Maccabis pre-match tactics earlier in the night "Go for the nets and edges guys!" and decided to use these tactics to his own advantage getting 3 edges and a net in the first set. The next 3 sets also went to the Prestwich D player and he eventually came out a 44-15 winner to further boost the D teams chances.
Steve H made short work of Stuart Simpson with some punishing forehand loops and again won every set (although there were a couple of close ones) to give Prestwich D a 44 point lead going into the final match of the night.
Andy McNabb needed to win just one point in the last match of the evening against Aubrey Huller to secure a win for Prestwich. He of course managed to get the point and more, beating Aubrey in all 4 sets.
So a convincing win for Prestwich D, winning by a margin of approximately 70 points. A lot of the sets were close and the difference was Prestwich's consistency that allowed them to bounce back from the close sets to secure good wins in the same match.
Overall we really enjoyed the structure of the match. It was far better starting at 0-0 and being able to play the game properly rather than starting 5 points behind playing 21 up and not being able to play your own game. Conversely Maccabi felt the other way, they would have preferred to have a bit of a start so that they could put the higher ranked team under pressure if they got off to a good start.
It was a bit confusing at first with the point totals but once a couple of games had been played and people could see the totals adding up down the side it became clearer. It might be worth adding a column onto the scorecard for the difference between the two scores so that it is even clearer?
