Lincoln Men’s Squash failed to register a single win in their 5-0 loss to the Nottingham 3rds.
The Squash first team were yet to win a game this season but were hopeful of a victory against the team that lied above them in the table.
However it didn’t start well in the 4th rank match which saw Matt Wrighting play.
Despite putting up some decent rallies, he never managed to get into the game and saw it run away from him quickly.
In a short amount of time Nottingham won the first game 11-4 and despite some improvement in the next two games, he lost them 5-11 6-11 to give Nottingham the first point.
It was looking better for Lincoln in the other court where 3rd ranked Louis Pauling was playing.
He was unfortunate to lose the first game 10-12 in an incredibly hard fought game that seemed to go on.
However he rallied and comfortably won the second game 11-6, giving Lincoln their first game of the day.
And it was looking like a win was on the cards when Pauling started the third game well, but the Nottingham player fought back from this and won that game 11-3. After that Nottingham was in control and won the final game 11-2 to make it 2-0 overall.
So the pressure was on 5th rank Robby Coates to keep Lincoln in it and at first he rose to the challenge, winning the first game 11-8.
However there were some problems in that game as Coates lost a lot of the final few points, and it seemed like the momentum had gone Nottingham’s way.
It had.
Despite some good play by Coates, Nottingham took control after the first game and despite a few close shaves, won the remaining games 6-11 7-11 5-11, giving Nottingham the win.
2nd rank Tom Snowling didn’t know yet that the match was lost and started well, winning the first game 11-8.
However a theme of the game turned out to be Lincoln starting well and winning games before Nottingham wised up and started to dominate.
This game was no different as Nottingham dominated the second game and won. Snowling did pick up his game in the following games but Nottingham weren’t letting this go and they won the final two games 7-11 5-11.
It was down to the 1st rank Billy Draper to restore some pride to Lincoln, and he was determined to do so.
Every point was hard fought as if it was the final point in the Commonwealth Games and here we saw the best rallies of the whole day, with each player not wanting to be the one who made a mistake.
In the closely fought first game, Nottingham won 11-9.
The second game though will hurt in Draper’s mind. He played his best squash in this game and stretched to a good lead and had plenty of game points in hand.
But he became obviously frustrated on the court and became angry, and Nottingham soon took advantage of that and in a tiebreaker won 12-10.
Draper did calm down and while still showing plenty of emotion on the court, fought hard to try and stay in the game.
Once again it was very close and went down to the wire, but Nottingham pulled it out of the bag and won 11-9, giving them a 5-0 win that will look a lot easier on paper than it actually was.
Squash Captain Billy Draper:
“I’m disappointed. Not just for myself but for the whole team. I’ve personally haven’t played that bad in a long time. The team should have won that game but we didn’t.”
“I’m glad it was like that (tight) because if I didn’t get that many points I’d be even more disappointed. It’s a shame, last time I beat him 3-1 but I couldn’t do the same today.”
“Number five (Robby Coates), should have won but lsot 3-1. For most of the plays today we played their game and not ours.”