The rain washed out the critical quarter-finals match between three-time Silver Hill king Mark “Venom” Griffith and young gun Emar Edwards for the second night in succession. But, after defending champion Antonio “Lil Man” Daniel had soften up Davian “Force Ripe” Taylor 21-10, 22-20 no one cared.
The supreme shotsmaster Daniel gave the fans their “money’s” worth with his first serve which defied physics as it scurried across his court, jumped the eight inch net and scurried into Taylor’s court which the latter could only parry into the net.
Employing his feared strategy of serve and lick Daniel created a buzz among the spectators and carved a haunted look on Taylor’s face as his training partner seemed devoid of skills or countering game plan. Daniel literally blasted to leads of 9-1 and 13-3 with the spectators screaming their delight.
Windfall of points
At that stage Taylor enjoyed a windfall of three straight points, jumping to 6-13 with some shots of his own and errors committed by Daniel. However, Daniel took charge of the game once more to move to 19-8 dangling the prospect of a pig in front of his cocky dreadlocked opponent.
Daniel gifted points to allow Taylor to escape the ignominy of that pig and in return Taylor conceded the game at 10-20 and turned to seek better fortune in the second game. He did look better in rising from 3-7 to lock the scores at eight while taking a lead 12-9.
With both players displaying an array of shots, the scores were locked from 15 up to 19 with the fans ironically hoping that Taylor would win to provide more fireworks from Daniel.
At 19-19, Daniel played one of his feared injections which saw Taylor sprinting into the court to be beaten as the ball spun away at a 90 degree angle causing Taylor to lose his footing and racquet.
Facing game and match point Taylor was then granted a reprieve as Daniel blasted what looked like a sure winner into the top of the net.
Stay of execution
However, it was just a temporary stay of execution as Daniel snatched the next two points with the fans begging to be allowed to pay for the display.
The rains then came to wash out the rescheduled match between Griffith and Edwards. Earlier Juliet Worrell had concluded her game against Asabi Downey which had started from the previous night. Worrell took the second game 21-11 after winning 21-14 on Tuesday night. (KB)
