MCCALLUM and McCrae posted very strong wins in Swan Hill tennis pennant on Saturday to go further ahead on the ladder, with Gray also doing well.
Major losers were Splatt and Stradbroke, which now have Curlewis breathing down their collective necks, and Beveridge.
Campbell lost another close one.
In the most competitive of the matches, Gray beat Campbell by only nine games, but collected 11 sets to six.
The men played a terrific series, and finished with 62 games each after nine sets.
Four sets were tie-breakers — Campbell’s Brad Kelly and substitute Jake Nalder beat Brendan Blackmore and Darren Hender, but Gray picked up the other three.
John Wardle and Christian Devlin beat Barry Dow and Andrew Sartori, Trevor Holt and Bruce McDowall defeated Jordan Weekley and Darren Barnes, and Wardle and Blackmore accounted for Dow and Kelly.
Gray gained a three game break in the women’s sets, which included two more tiebreaks.
Colleen Grant and Milly Saville beat Louisa Frost and Sophie Sartori, and Grant and Hayley Siddons scraped home from Louisa and Kasey Frost.
Gray scooted ahead in the mixed, where Hender and Siddons, Holt and Grant and Ron Fatt and Saville (in another tie-break) were successful.
Campbell’s Barnes and Bridie Gardner finished the day with an eighth tie-breaker, beating McDowall and Jamie Gorringe.
The women’s and mixed sets went to the wire in Curlewis versus Stradbroke, but Curlewis scored heavily in the men’s department to win by 16 games.
McCrae reacted powerfully to its loss last week, ripping through Splatt to win by 34 games.
Once again Beveridge proved it needs Matt Witney on board. It played McCallum without him and succumbed by a mammoth 53 games.
McCallum stayed one point ahead of McCrae on the ladder, and Gray maintained its third place.
Stradbroke, in spite of its loss, went to fourth place, displacing Splatt, and Curlewis closed the gap, now sitting only one point behind Splatt.
Beveridge remained seventh but a gap opened up in the points tally, while Campbell still props up the competition, and retains its unlucky tag, after yet another battling loss.
