Round 1
The first official LATA event took place in June with 3 members of the team battling it out on a perfect hard court surface. Stewart”Bullet Serve” Millard played Neil”Hampshire County Player” Sibbald in the first game which Neil choose to serve. This was Stewart first game in over 5 years and he managed to keep it close with Neil eventually winning a close fought contest.
Next it was Leigh”The Spin” Moody will his dodgy back and patched up knees, and who had also not picked up a racket in well over 5 years playing Neil. Neil won the toss and elected to serve which may have been a bad omen due to only playing 4 points and already being one game down. It was a fast paced match but eventually the power and speed around the court of Mr Moody was far to much for Mr Sibbald who had no answer and had to concede he had been outplayed by a far superior player.
Stewart thought was a different level of player when he played Leigh and both athletics were playing some tremendous ground strokes which even had a court next to them stop and admire the beautiful game. Neil was busy outside the court talking to himself and practising picking up tennis balls off the floor!!!! It was a close fought contest but the master of spin managed to finally win and was delighted when he could rest and enjoy the wonderful sunshine.
Round 2
Again Neil won the toss and elected to serve. Stewart had learnt a few lessons from the previous encounter and quickly had Neil on the back foot with some wonderful top spin forehands which were non-returnable. This was a battle and both players were feeling the affects of the warm weather, but it was Stewart who was able to dig deeper into the reserve tank and heap more misery on Mr Sibbald who was unable to demonstrate the skill which had made him the under 8 county champion of Hampshire and finally concede defeat to the talented Mr Millard.
The 2nd match between Mr Millard and Mr Moody followed a similar pattern with both players looking for a early win, but it was Stewart who took a early lead and had Leigh wondering how he was going to match the obviously new found confident that Mr Millard was clearly demonstrating. Both players were clearing running on empty but it was Mr Millard who throw the game away and allowed Mr Moody to finally win another close and competitive battle.
The last game of the night was saw Mr Sibbald trying to gain some pride back against Mr Moody after being completely outplayed in there first match. Unfortunately for Neil the second match followed a similar patten and resulted in a large defeated to a overweight, older and unfit opponent in the shape of Mr Moody.
The next scheduled round of games is due in July with 3 other members of the Powwownow family becoming members of the LATA association. Look out for the next update.
