TAVISTOCK'S Squash Club's fifth match of the season, away to Devon and Exeter G and CC, proved a close contest.

First up was Tim Heal for the home side against Pete Middleton of Tavistock. The first game was nip and tuck with Tim edging the lead at 7-5, but Pete dug in and eventually took the game 9-7 with quality stroke play.

The second game was taken with relative ease by Tim to square the match at 1 game all.

In the third, Pete regained composure and won a hard fought game 10-8. Unfortunately, he had expended a lot of energy and lost the final two as a few mistakes crept into his game with Tim the outright winner by 3 games to 2.

Next up was the fourth string match between Andy Roberts and Stuart Cox for Tavistock. Unfortunately, the Tavistock captain could not find any of his form from the previous week's game and struggled to return an awkward service from Andy. Andy won the match with relative ease by 3 games to 0 to put the home side into a 2 - 0 lead.

The third string match between Derek and Colin Grice of Tavistock proved to be a relatively straightforward victory for the Tavistock No3 taking the match 9-6, 9-3 and 9-4 to pull Tavistock back into the match.

Tim Wallis, of Tavistock, playing at No2 seems to be going from strength to strength. He met an out of form Jerry from D & E. Tim took a 2-0 lead with ease as his opponent seemed to make a large number of unforced errors on which Tim capitalised with excellent drops.

Tim seemed to be cruising to a 3-0 victory in the third , however his opponent fought back helped by some casual play by Tim, won the game and pulled the match back to 2-1. Tim tightened up his game in the fourth to become outright winner 3 games to 1 and pulled the match back to all square.

It was all down to the number ones Tavistock's Andy Gauler against Dave from D and E. Andy took the first game 9-3 as his opponent struggled to find any width to his shots.

The second game was much tighter as his opponent found the match of Andy. He stretched him to 10-8 with Andy taking a 2-0 lead. The match was developing into a hard fought battle with neither player wanting to give the initiative to the opponent. As a result the players were sometimes slow to clear the ball leading to a number of letts creeping into the game. Dave fought back in the next two games to square the match at two games all. This set it up for a final 5 set decider.

The marker struggled to maintain control of an increasingly difficult game to score. He had already requested assistance from the Tavistock captain and in the final game more and more decisions went to arbitration.

It became a battle between two tiring players who refused to let the opponent have a clear shot at the ball, and as a result led to a game where the number of letts awarded could probably have been entered into the Guinness Book of Records. This marred what was undoubtedly a hard fought battle with D and E taking the final game and the match by 3 ties to 2.