THE END IS NEAR, THE END IS HERE, ARE YOU SAFE?
There are very few things in life that tell the truth or bring out the best/worst in people; yoga pants, drunk people, relegation threatened people and angry people almost always tell the truth. Well the season is seconds away from finishing and everyone is giving it their best on the homerun lap. Ace and Paul paid Nsovo a little visit to remind the guy that experience is not bought over the counter. Yazeed had a couple of memorable finishes and mistakes here and there that almost let Nsovo in but at the end of the day the older guy was too composed for the host to freestyle. I am not sure if Ace was still angry for what had happened to him in KZN that he had to take it out on poor Nsovo but for some or other reason he played with enough determination and firepower to frustrate Bana Shilolo and force errors. The score may have been 4-3 in both sets in favour of Ace but the game itself was a great spectacle and it could have went either way really. Paul was not present to cheer for his travelling partner on Saturday as he preferred to sleep throughout the day (he is not getting any younger) and maybe he would have wanted to spend the Sunday in between the sheets to but he had to heed the call of duty and with the precision of a surgeon and the calmness of the sea in the morning, he blasted Nsovo deep into the relegation gutter and straight into the plane back to the mother city immediately after that and it is rumored that The Gentleman once again slept through the two hour trip. Maybe they should have let him sleep it off, and maybe, just maybe Nsovo wouldn’t have conceded bonus scores. Paul won 4-0 and 4-1 respectively to end up joint at 3rd place and tied on 80 points with the ever improving Ace, well this might change this weekend when Charl, Yulan and Kyle are in action. Sbu also got the better of Vishen away at Timeout to end on 6th position with one game remaining. The Dish took the first set 4-1 and Sbu quickly returned the same favour and then went on to take the deciding set 4-0. Jagdev is however still stuck in that red/yellow zone, no surprises there as is customary in the Premier League, it has always been decided in the first few weeks and as such Vishen amongst others has been skating on very thin ice but he did just enough to avid the axe. At 7th position he has just managed to guarantee himself another season in the top flight league.
With promotion in sight, Keegan and Azim had all to play for over the weekend when Rushin came over without his traveling partner Keeyam Schoeman who has gone AWOL. Maybe Yummy saw that he was as good as relegated and rather opted for the easy way out. Rushin was of course playing for a third place finish as the first two spots are all but taken by Keegan and Azim. These two travelling partners have done tremendously well especially Keegza who nearly got relegated last season and was saved by the bell at the eleventh hour when he played off against Leenash and won to secure his place in the league that he now dominates. Hoosen now finds himself on the verge of making history as the first player to win (Keegan will of course fight hard to prevent this) the league with less number of wins than the other potential champion. Keegan has won three more games than Azim but the magician always made sure that he wins a set even if he lost a match and now it will come to the wire as these two now have to spar against each other to determine which half will be hoisting that coveted trophy. It has been an awesome season for both of them, Azim is the reigning GP singles champion and Keegan is a current Protea player from the recent National tournament. They both do deserve the title but they have to give us one last showpiece, and it will be an epic battle.
Nicky came about ten minutes late for the match and that put Thami off a little. The two gentlemen decided to play without anyone forfeiting any frames but you could see from the body language that the adrenalin had risen with the mercury. Thami was playing as if dishing out some draconian style punishment to the late-comer. I had never witnessed such ruthlessness from the predator from Soweto and the 4-0 and 4-2 scores are testament to the excessive force that was applied by Rea Vaya but could it be too little too late for Jabavu? Maybe not as he finishes it off in a not so distant future in Durban at Hotshots when he takes on the local duo in Sylvester and Lenny. If Thami wins both matches in the East Coast, he would miraculously escaped relegation and secured a playoff spot, it will be a great milestone considering the fact that he has never been out of the red zone from the onset.
Kevin Seseane is one hell of a fighter, he has successfully fended off relegation, but he seems to be running on a diesel engine, he left it almost until very late to find his rhythm and maybe he could have been scrapping for a third place finish had he stayed with the leading pack from the start of the marathon. The past few weeks have seen Shushu win matches and crucial sets when he lost those matches and the second half of the season has pretty much belonged to him. This past weekend Seseane had to take on homeboys Nelson and Zander in a Bloemfontein double derby at Louws Billiards Room. Kevin took the first set 4-0 but then Da President must have taken that as a wakeup call and he then let the dogs out. He released airforce1 and the secret soldiers and successfully got the better of Kevin 4-2 and 4-1 respectively but Shushu had already stolen a valuable 4 points in the first set and this gave him enough wings under his wings to fly past a dazzled Zander. Kriel could only take three frames in the first set and the last set was all about Kev. Shushu went on to register his second 4-0 score for the weekend bringing the total points for the weekend to 11 which is basically one point shy of regular match points for a double but for his efforts Kevin is the Sheriff’s Toast of the week.
THE BPL NEVER DISAPPOINTS!!!
