Sussex were placed in a very strong group for the 1st stage of the 2nd

inter-county racketball. Bucks who finished 1st, Kent who were 2nd and

Sussex who were 3rd last year along with Hants.1st match Sussex played Bucks. Bucks were under strength but stll gave us a good match. Tim Vail at 1 beat Tom Power 3-0, Brandon beat Tom White 3-1 and Ben Hutton had the toughest match beating Simon Martin 3-2. Pete Browning and Steve Wall both won 3-0. 2nd match vs Kent. Definitely the toughest match of the weekend. In the afternoon Kent drafted in number 1 Ted Jeal who had been playing the Kent junior Closed. He played very well vs Tim Vail but Tim was too strong an won 3-1. Brandon had a rarity and played well winning 3-0 and Ben Hutton after a slow start got going and won 3-1. Kent were very strong down the order and won the 4th and 5th string 3-0. 3-2 to Sussex and us in a great chance to qualify as winners.3rd match on the Sunday morning we played Hants who had also beaten Bucks but lost to Kent. Therefore we had to well to make sure we qualified. SimonTunley came in at 5 and competed really well. He was 10-6 down in the 5^th and came back to 14 all only to narrowly lose 17-15. Steve Wall was feeling the effects of the previous day and lost 3-0 to a good racketball player, not bad for someone who has not been on court for 6 months!! Ben won 3-0 at 3rd string, Brandon was not feeling 100% after a 50th Birthday bash and could not repeat the previous days play and lost 3-1 and Tim won 3-0 easy at no.1. So we lost 2 Hants 3-2. They ended up on 37 points, Sussex got 43 and Kent 45 points. So we qualified 2nd and go through to the finals trying to win this event for the 1st time

Tim