The longest unbeaten record in the Braintree Table Tennis League came under serious threat last week – but in the end, survived

Matthew Brown has played in all 14 of Rayne E’s matches in division two and has rarely been troubled. Up to his most recent match, Brown had been stretched to four games only nine times in 39 sets, but never to five. That changed when he came across Black Notley C’s Rev Matthews.

For only the second time this season, he lost the first game. The first time he did that he won the next three 11-5, 11-2, 11-4. Not this time. Instead, Matthews repeated the dose, winning the second at 11-9, as he had done in the first.

Brown came back to win the third 11-3, but the two then matched each other in the fourth – until they reached 10-10. That was when the dream ended. Brown clung on to take the next two points and clinched the win 11-7 in the fifth.

‘I thought it was all going well . . . until it wasn’t,’ said Matthews afterwards, a feeling familiar to table tennis players the world over.

Rayne E won the match 6-4, their third successive match by that scoreline. That strengthened their hold on second place after Rayne D lost 7-3 to Yeldham Whitlocks A.

Fourth-placed Notley D, with only two players, could find no answer to leaders Sudbury Wanderers, who added to their growing list of 10-0 wins.

At the other end of the table, Rayne F put some daylight between themselves and the bottom rung with a 9-1 win over Notley F. Richard Whiteside and Steve Buer were unbeaten.

Jamie Brooks and Lawrence Grantham took all seven between them as Notley E beat Netts D 7-3.

Division three leaders Finchingfield A were held up by something of a one-man show in their match against Netts E.

David Montgomery was the barrier none of them could get past, accounting for Peter Clark’s third defeat of the season and Dave Punt’s fifth in his three wins. Finchingfield took the rest.

Second-placed Sudbury Strollers were grateful to the unbeaten Richard Fifield to see them through a stiff challenge against Rayne G. His three singles steered them to a 6-4 win in the face of two excellent wins each for Rayne’s Ethan Collins and Conrad Gomes.

Notley G, in third place, were held to a draw by Finchingfield B. Stewart Grant, beaten only once in his previous 20 sets, was surprisingly found out by Jacqueline Smith, who had lost her other two sets.

Tim Townsend and Dave Whiting were unbeaten in Rayne G’s 8-2 win over Notley H while Notley’s I team beat Netts F 9-1.

The latter was a hard-luck story for 16-year-old James Howard, who was responsible for Netts’ solitary point but could easily have taken two more, losing out at 11-9 in the fifth against Tony Brown and 14-12, 12-10 in his final two games against Ben Southgate after leading two games to one.