Catz cream Merton in cuppers victory
The Catz A pair prepare to receive a smash
The St Catz team stormed to victory with an accomplished display in the Badminton Cuppers final last Friday. St Catz were slight favourites before the match but both teams featured prominent university players including the powerful Holger Wilms of St Catz, current Oxford president and Dmetri Akatov of Merton, an experienced first team Blue.
The first two sets of games saw the A pairs playing the B pairs of each college and it was little surprise when Wilms and his partner Alex Chmelintzki quickly overpowered Merton’s B pair, winning 21-7. On the other court it was a much more tense affair as St Catz’s solid B pair, Steven Hyde and Matthew Brooke- Hitching, got out to an early 5-0 lead. Merton were represented by Akatov and fellow blue Jay Harji who, although misfiring, managed to keep in touch.
At 14-10 the game looked like it could go either way as flashes of brilliance were tempered by unforced errors on each side of the net. It was the Catz pair who pulled away in the final stages, Brooke-Hitching and Hyde outmanoeuvring the stuttering Akatov and Harji, pulling off an unexpected 21-15 victory. At the switch-over St Catz needed just one more match to retain their Cuppers title. It was the battle of the B pairs that proved to be decisive.
At 4-4 both sides seemed consistent with Merton’s Dan Taylor looking reliable from the back court and Andrien Harsono playing some deft drop shots at the net. By half way, it was the Catz pair that had established a lead thanks to their excellent court coverage - up 11-6 at the turnaround On the other court, the A pairs were slugging out a tight contest, scoring at a much slower rate.
The Merton pair, although being forced into defensive play much of the time by the thunderous back court smashes of Wilms, eked out a lead, but at 17-12 to Merton the game became irrelevant as Hyde and Brooke- Hitching emerged 21-9 victors on the other court, sealing an overall Catz win. Seemingly spurred on by the good news from their team-mates Chmelnitzki and Wilms stormed back into the game levelling at 18- 18, and the 4-0 whitewash was completed, fittingly, with a final Wilms thunderbolt.
19th May 2005