Despite a last minute re-shuffle in their line-up, the Union Church managed to emerge victorious by six games to three over the visiting CSF. team in a Mixed Doubles encounter of the Badminton League yesterday evening. Last night matches were the closing ones of the first round and saw the Church aggregation maintain a healthy lead of nine games over the second-ranking French Club side. The Union Church, reigning champions, seem likely to repeat their last year's success as they have reeled off 32 games out of 36 starts.
Another fixture yesterday was played at the Country Club when the home team overwhelmed the Sokol side by nine sets to nil, with every match won by a convincing margin, The Union Church have lost Mrs. Wilkinson for the rest of the season and her absence forced the champions to revise their line-up, which gained fairly satisfactory results last night. The combination of Lionel Kew and Mrs. Sinclair proved irresistible and triumphed over A. G. Meise and Mrs. Jorgensen by 15-11, 15-8, 15-9, the trick shots of Kew earning numerous points. Their only setback was received by Mr. and Mrs. G. G. Clarke when Berents and Mrs. Hubbard won the match, but not before the Church players took the third game at 15-12. G. D. Chelmis and Miss Kemp completed the 6-3 victory for the titleholders when they ousted McKinnon and Mrs. Wolfe by 15-4, 10-15, 15-8. The visiting couple gained some freedom; n the second game, which they eventually won, as Chelmis failed to get in his usually dangerous smashes.
At the Country Club, the Sokols proved no match for the home seniors and except for one game in which Barraclough and Miss Holwill were extended to 15-10 by Ivanchenko and Mrs. Mihailoff, the Country Club players had their opponents well in control.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.