Senior British League- Ashford Team Report
By ATTC Webmaster on Apr 23, 2022 with Comments 0
Ashford (Farhat “Raz” Rasul (captain), Artur Lopata, Axel Raeder, Michael Silver, Sarah Horsnell and Winston Wong) play in Division 4 of the National C level of the 2021-22 SBL.
Here’s is Raz’s report from the final rounds:
Sat 9th/Sun 10th April 2022 played at the Fareham Academy
The Ashford SBL league team (Raz, Artur, Mike, Axel) played their last round of the 2021/22 matches at Generation II’s venue.
Laying mid-table, Ashford faced four teams over the weekend – two above and two below them.
Saturday morning’s match kicked off against the loud, young and talented juniors from Greenhouse (London). The youngsters showed their flair, beating their opponents either in straight games or just dropping one game.
It was only in the doubles that Axel and Artur managed to notch up a close Ashford win. The final 8-1 score reflected the gulf in age and talent, but also highlighted that playing against pimples can still trouble even the most talented player (Ahemm! Axel).
Saturday afternoon’s match, was against a bottom of the division team, Haywards Heath, struggling to avoid relegation.
Ashford beat them 9-0, beating all their players 3 straight or 3-1.
Again, this highlighted the gulf in standards between the top, middle and bottom teams in the division.
Sunday morning’s first match was against Foresters 3, a mid-table team who had two “funny bat” players – one a “decent chopper” and another who stayed at the table, counter rallied and hit with a funny bat!
However, Raz and Artur easily beat the “decent chopper” 3-0 and 3-1 in their games. The other “funny bat” player, who counter rallied, put up more of a struggle but eventually lost 3-2 and 3-1 to Raz and Mike.
Player number four also put up a good fight against Artur but was beaten 3-2. The final match score was 8-1 to Ashford.
Sunday afternoon’s match was against Portsea Island, one of the two top teams in the division.
The match got off to a good start, with Artur beating Portsea’s number one in 5 games.
Portsea’s number two – an ex Hong Kong top 30, left handed, pen holder, with an amazing backhand, could easily have been their number one. He beat Raz and Mike in straight games.
Axel did well to beat Portsea’s number three but lost narrowly to their number four.
By the fifth game, Ashford were leading 3-2, with a real prospect of getting a good win against a top team!
In the next match, Raz was winning the first two games against Portsea’s number one and it looked like Ashford would take a 4-2 lead. However, Portsea’s number one, a right handed penholder with short pimples on the backhand, came back from 2-0 down to win and level the match score at 3-3.
In the seventh match, Artur had a good win putting Ashford 4-3 in the lead again.
In the eigth match, Mike played and lost 3-0 to Portsea’s number two, who BTW had an overall 92% win rate in that division.
The match score was 4 each going into the final game between Axel and Portsea’s number 4. Axel played a good game “pimpling” his opponent but lost in three straight close games.
That made the final match score 5-4 to Portsea Island.
Although, Ashford narrowly lost to Portsea, who eventually came runners up, the team was buoyed up and buzzing on the way home. Ashford finished fifth out of eight in the division.
Results, Table etc.
Full results and the table can be viewed on the TTE British League website:
Filed Under: British Clubs League • News
About the Author: Published by the ATTC Webmaster
