- Dougie Brown made a return at #5 after a long back-injury layoff and looked very good to share the first two games with Mark Pilcher. Drifted off the pace after that to lose 1-3.
- Mark Dutton started slowly against Pete Cochrane to go 0-2 down, won the third very well but the week-long head cold finally caught up (as did Pete's quite decent volley-drop game)
- Alan Stokes ran into fitness machine Joe Andrews at #2 and matched him (nearly) point for point to lose 9-10, 9-10 in the first two. The fitness levels fully kicked in during the third game and Rob ran away with it. 0-3
- Pete Tweedie played the very capable Rob Purdie at #3 (knocked Christy off last year, I believe) {Ed note: Actually, Christy knocked off Peter C last year in Linlithgow , it was at The Grange (even worse) that Christy got knocked off by Rob P} and didn't see much joy in the first two games at all. In the third he finally realised that he was playing a left-hander and ceased putting every ball on Rob's powerful and tricksy fore-hand. Much improved as a result and Pete got as far as having two game points but finally lost that one. Would've been a tight match if the third game had actually been the first one....but damage already done. 0-3.
- Same story for Pete Cockburn at #1. He matched Mark Osborne very well in general play but by the end of each rally it was Pete that had eventually been worn down into the loose shot. The third game was very competitive and likewise had it started that way then a close match would have ensued but damage done and 0-3 the result.
So.....a 2-18 loss. Not a good result on paper (can everybody recognise a euphemism when they see one), but in reality everybody showed themselves capable of matching their opponents for decent periods of their matches. All credit to Lin2 though...they never let us into it.
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