With the first-team enjoying a bye week, the focus at Melbourn Squash Club turned to the seconds away to Saffron Walden.

However, that proved to be a mixed blessing as they fell to a 17-3 loss in Division Three of the Cambs Squash League.

Their only points of the evening came at fifth string, where Mark Asker’s low driving style proved too much for the hosts' skipper, and former Melbourn player, John Goodfellow.

Asker kept his opponent pinned deep to win the match 3-0.

But Melbourn’s chances of adding additional points to this were limited to Gareth Jones and Jan Brynjolffssen.

Jones was level pegging late on in each of his games but errors in the critical rallies meant he lost 3-0.

Brynjolffssen produced his best squash of the season to give himself a genuine chance of nicking a game, his best opportunity coming in game three but he was unable to capitalise on a 12-10 lead.

Liam Murphy and Colm O’Gorman were the other players but they too lost 3-0.

Skipper Brynjolffssen said: "I knew we were in for a tough evening when I saw their team.

"I thought Mark always had a good chance of beating John at fifth string and he delivered excellently on that, and on another evening Gareth would have taken at least one game of his, but we were always up against it overall."