It is easy to blame the lack of success this season on the host of injuries and unavailabilities that have plagued the first team this year, however with only one of the eight nominated first team players available to play Warwickshire III it was always going to be tough to avenge the defeat from earlier in the season.
Captain Rob Pace, the only Cambs player not to have missed a match for the county this season continued his impressive singles run- opening the match with a strong win over Warwicks' top player. Unfortunately Richard Fryer, suffering from a slight lack of recent practice was not able to convert his game, going down in straight sets. Natalie Taylor continued her drive back to fitness with a confidence boosting win in a close fought two set match, and the singles honours were shared evenly as Liz Salmon was solidly beaten at second singles.
The mens doubles saw the singles players team up together, however Pace/Fryer found their touch completely deserted them as they suffered two extremely disappointing defeats. Thankfully new pairing of James Wilson/Neil Place came to the rescue by beating both Warwicks' pairings in close games, playing extremely well together to ensure the spoils were also split in the mens doubles.
Taylor teamed up with her club partner Amanda Godfrey for the ladies doubles and had mixed success, with a close win over one Warwicks pair, but just losing out to the other. It was up to the second team pairing of Salmon/Sandra Ashcroft to tie the match going into the mixed and things looked to be on track as they won the first set against the second pair before just going down in three sets, then losing in two sets to the top pairing.
This left Cambs 7-5 down with 3 mixed to play, needing one for a consolation point or all three for an unlikely win. Salmon/Place first took on Warwicks third pair and played a fantastic game, coming back from a distinctly fishy first set to take the game 22-20 in the third and ensuring Cambs would not go home empty handed. Next Taylor/Fryer had a monumental battle against the very strong first pair, again recovering from a first set defeat to take the remaining two sets 29-27, 23-21. This tied the scores, meaning the match would be decided on the very last game of the day. A victory looked on as Godfrey/Wilson ran away with the first set but a Warwicks revival saw the second set lost and meant the entire tie rested on the final set of the final game. A 9 point gap opened up as Cambs lead 18-9, however incredibly Warwicks fought back to take the match score came to 7 games all, 1 set all, 20 all. The closest possible finish to a match saw Cambs win 22-20 in the final set and take the match 8-7.
A fantastic victory which gives Cambs a glimmer of hope of avoiding relegation- a 10-5 victory over Notts is now required to stay up.