There was just a little shuffling with the standings this
week, as no one team has stood out just yet. Not a lot of action, being proved
by the fact that the most points picked up on Wednesday was just 32 by team Vivio’s. That’s not very high, but good
enough to give them top billing after 2 rounds. It is nice to be first, but I wouldn’t
be pumping the fists too much considering the 4th placed team is
just two 3-0 wins behind them.
As far as bonus points go, five teams picked up more of them than what they scored on court! I
get the importance of the bonus point – since I say often enough that the teams
that turn up are more successful – but let me also add that getting on court as
well and actually playing the match
is in reality priority number one. We are two weeks in, and we have 51
players that haven’t yet completed a match… Good news is that we are only 2
weeks in. Plenty of time. But let’s not wait around too long to get the motor running,
okay?
A number of 3-0 results have come in so far, but that’s not
to say they haven’t been competitive. I managed to sneak a peak of the final
game between Brady Savage (Foss Nation) and Will Markley (Wardogs)
and since I wasn’t following the score too closely, from the back and forth
these two were displaying – impressive court coverage to say the least (how I
long for the days that I could move with… let’s call it “careless” speed without any thought of crashing head first into a
wall) – I couldn’t tell who was winning. In fact when they walked off, it was
Brady who appeared in the most discomfort whereas Will was smiling despite the
deep, heavy breathing, and when I asked what the score was, Brady couldn’t even
talk! Will happily divulged he had lost
3-0. Could have fooled me, Will! If you had said you had won, I doubt Brady had
the energy to correct you. Of course, after a short break, they both went back
on the court to continue annihilating themselves.
In another entertaining affair, Tony Sorgi (Butter Nutz)
and Matt Peleman (Vivio’s) seemed hell bent on destroying
the other’s physical well-being. I watch some of these rallies and think to
myself that at some point I would simply just stop rather than risk structural
collapse. But the younger crew haven’t learnt that life lesson yet (or so it
seems). Tony picked up his second straight 2-1 win. Matt picked up his beer and
will fight to live another day.
In other matches that make this week’s newsreel: Han Peng (Nick at Night) scored his first ever win in 4 attempts over Sandy Selinger (Winky-Dinks) with a 2-1 victory here; Jon Diewald (Winky-Dinks)
played Steve Smihal (Nick at Night) for the 24th
time in recorded history and the 2-1 win here gives him a 16 to 8 advantage in
that little rivalry; and Mike Rock (Mongoose) played the late show with Dewey Steffen (Nicker Ballers) and took a 2-1 win in their first ever meeting.
So moving to week three, we already have a 1st v
2nd as Vivio’s take on Mongoose and actually the 2 captains
are scheduled to play each other. We also have a 3rd v 4th
(Butter Nutz v Foss Nation), so maybe this is the week that the top teams start to
separate themselves from the rest? Exciting stuff to say the least! Almost as
exciting as the Gaylord / Thomas v
Tibbitts / Currie doubles match last night. Almost… but not quite.