After two straight defeats Cambridgeshire 1 desperately needed a victory against Warwickshire 3 to distance themselves from the foot of the table and allay their relegation worries. With two regular players being unavailable Amanda Godfrey started her first match of the season and Rob Pace stepped in to fill a gap in mens doubles.
The opening singles gave Cambs the perfect start as Rob Pace opened up his singles account with a confident victory and Olga Bryant kept up her impressive record with a straight sets win to give Cambs a 2-0 lead. Unfortunately this was as good as things got as the match rapidly turned in Warwickshire’s favour. The second round of singles saw defeats for Jon Carson and Jaclyn Lai before the level doubles pairings of Olga Bryant/Amanda Godfrey, Kate Balls/Jaclyn Lai, John Tibbutt/James Wilson and Rob Pace/Jon Carson contrived to lose all eight games in straight sets.
The mixed games were effectively dead rubbers, however veteran Nick Pratt, called back out of retirement to partner fellow veteran Bryant rolled back the years with a truly fantastic nail biting three end win over the extremely strong Warwicks first pair. Balls/Pace were unfortunate to lose out in their close fought match at second pair however Wilson/Godfrey laid down their claim to regular first team mixed with a solid win at third.
This left Cambridgeshire bitterly disappointed to leave empty handed with an 11-4 defeat and slightly confused as to how it went quite so wrong. Strong performances in the singles and mixed (and a lesson that experience and a wise head often count for more than youth and agility), however improvements are needed in level doubles if Cambs are to maintain their position in division 2.