Rain bails out South Croydon from certain defeat

Magdalen Park were poised to run away with things until it's winter ally - the weather - turned the tables and put a wet blanket on proceedings.

Clay and Rose blew the first set when Gavin Rose, late substitute, gashed his knee and struggled with a tourniquet to stem the crimson tide. Astonishingly, the Magdalen Park duo came back from 5-3 and two match points down to nail the second set 7-5. South Croydon were spent: mentally exhasuted, they crashed 6-1 in the third.

The reverse was true in the other rubber. Paulo Hungover and Matthew Wakeslow blitzed the opposition taking the first set easily 6-1 in 20 minutes. "What happened next defied the imagination," wailed Clay, skipper on the day. "How attacking talent like that can simply give up the ghost astonishes me!" Paulo and Matthew were hit off the court 4-6, 3-6 in the remaining rubbers.

The result, of course, was never in doubt. The rains come, though, and put the matter off. Battle recommences at the end of July.