Surrey League – Spencer 1 v Wimbledon 3 – Match Report

  • Surrey Squash and Racketball

I was first up on court playing someone who looked like they might ask some questions of my racket skills. Indeed in the first game, while I was fiddling with my sticky range dials, he played some incisive and ballsy squash to just pip me to the post. Yet while he proudly took a breather at said post titled “FIRST GAME”, I winked his way and ask, “at what cost?”. Never mind that I’m wholly inspired by the knowledge that Roger Federer is somewhere nearby (and may pop in to watch, why not), so I pulled finger, take advantage of an open court, and cruise the next two games. The fourth saw a spirited counter attack, gutsy like Novak, vocal like Murray, I held on by my fingernails and channeled the Fed. Of course it works and I scrape the win 3-1. Can I now claim I played at Wimbledon and won?

With the luxury of dual courts I didn’t get to see any of Harry’s match. He had a two part match report for me: he’d lost 3-1 (and that for some reason he was afraid). And his opponent played a lot of drops, Harry dislikes drops. He certainly had his work cut out for him at the number 2 spot, especially being slightly out of match practice. But that one game proved a very valuable mini buffer for the next two matches, priming the psyches of our remaining team. Big thank you to Harry for making the effort to couchsurf his way over the match. Hard lines.

Youngsters these days are all about the instant gratification. By contrast, Danny is all about waiting for his additional marshmallow. He found himself up against one of these tall youngsters who seemed dead keen on admiring his winning shots – and they weren’t bad shots. If he were sitting outside of the court, Danny might have been admiring them too. Instead, Danny kindly asked that he play more shots, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another etc. etc ad infinitum (“good lad, here’s your extra marshmallow”). The first game swung his way, yet it wouldn’t have mattered, for in the second game the youngster’s head pulled a Boris and his legs voted Out. Danny, sensing an opportunity, allowed himself the luxury of the trickle boast to get the legs to leave sooner than they cared to admit. In the end it all proved too much for the youngster’s fragile sense of self and Danny drove the point home with a quick invocation of Article 3-0. Top notch.

When the chips are down us Safas like to turn to a little something called ‘gees’ [grind out that G, linger on the ‘eeeh’ and wrap it up with the s]. Gees is like having a fire in the belly. Gees is about giving the big middle finger to adversity. Gees is about staring a loss down into oblivion. In the first two games Mike lacked gees. His tall hard-hitting opponent was clobbering balls wherever he saw fit, while Mike indulged in some form of sadomasochism by repeatedly feeding in mid-court fodder. Soon Mike found himself 2-0 down. But then something special happened in the third. He opened the faucet for his gees, full tilt, and he let it rip, extending to distant reaches of the court that took his opponent well and truly out of his comfort zone. There were some deftly placed forehand volley drives, some “how’s your mother?” deception at the front of the court, and maybe even two back wall dead nicks which some would say was”lucky”. It wasn’t luck, it was gees. At that stage we only needed one game from Mike to secure the fixture. Instead he gave us gees. 3-2 to him. Jolly well played.

After having the captaincy quite unexpectedly thrust upon me, I’m grateful to the team for pulling through to keep up our winning streak. As a result no resignations are necessary and Spencer 1 further extends its lead at the top of the table.

Grant Viljoen

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