The 10th of 12 regular season rounds brought us a pair of surprises as the top two outfits were handsomely accounted for by opposition in the bottom two spots as play got back into full tilt following the previous weekend’s heat cancellation.
Now, the scorelines may look vastly different, but there was little to no doubt in either case.
Where moments landed most emphatically was up at Numurkah, where the Warriors met the Velvet Tigers.
It looked every bit the blowout it turned into from early on, with Jack Bassett, Mark Mills and Nick Damianopoulos rattling off a string of powerful set wins.
While Alex Bakogianis was able to offer some resistance and fire back on behalf of the Nathalia-based outfit, the singles clashes were otherwise complete one-way traffic to all but take the contest away.
Bassett was back to repeat the dose in the day’s first doubles rubber with a huge win alongside Grant Chappell, before completing his perfect outing next to Lucy Bassett as the Warriors made a huge statement courtesy of a whopping 9-86 to 3-49 win.
We got a local derby at Shepparton Lawn Tennis Club between Average Joes and The Valley, but not entirely a full-sized affair on the courts.
Average Joes might have been in the contest, perhaps even winners when all was said and done, but a lack of numbers in the women’s department led to three rubbers being forfeited.
With that mountain to climb in mind, the remainder of the Average Joes lineup battled hard in the nine other ties, taking six including three of the opening four singles contests, but the deficit was simply too great.
The 6-79 to 6-59 result doesn’t tell the entire story, of course, but the weekend’s scores nonetheless make it a very cloudy picture in GM1.
Both The Valley and the Warriors sit just a game behind the second-placed Velvet Tigers with a fortnight to play after these pivotal results both fell the way of the underdogs.
Meanwhile, McEwen Reserve continued its commanding unbeaten start to life in the GMLTA’s framework with its 11th victory of the GM2 campaign, this time at the expense of Shepparton Lawn Demons.
Over in GM2 Open, another fresh outfit in Euroa White was able to make up some ground on leading side Stanhope after overcoming Tongala in dominant fashion, with Kialla Park-Old Students Colonels pulling through a nail-biting 6-58 to 5-57 win over the western table-toppers.
