Brian Hargrave ponders a Duffield home tie against Man/Pont with both teams suffering from seasonal absentees ...
With the 'flu bug doing the rounds and the appropriately named Qatar Open closely followed by the World Open Championships taking many players to the Middle East, teams for the fifth round tie on the 2nd December will again have an interesting look.
Both Benz-Bavarian Duffield and 100% Group A leaders Manchester- Pontefract will be without their top players who are all making progress in Qatar. Unless Dan Jenson returns in time the probable line up on the night will be :
1 Paul Hargrave (Eng 17)v Nick Taylor (Eng 6 world 21)
2 Jon Kemp (Eng 21) v Marcus Berrett (Eng 14)
3 Marcus Cowie v Andy Whipp (Eng 25)
4 Kevin White v Jon Rooney (Irish 2)
5 Laura Hill (Eng 18) v Lauren Siddall (Eng 22)
The results in Qatar mean that Duffield will be without Nick Matthew, Renan Lavigne and Dan Jenson. .
The final Manchester - Pontefract line up is as anticipated.
The ladies rubber will be an intriguing encounter between full time fire-fighter Laura Hill and the talented Lauren Siddall who is the non nominated 6th choice lady player that Manchester are fortunate to be able to call upon.
The order of play will be Main Court -Ladies, M2, M1 and court 4 M3, M4
The tie is jointly sponsored by Rob & Wendy Lowe of Stage 42 and Vaughan & Ros Kamping of Dunelm Contractors.
