THIS season’s opening week of the Weymouth & District League saw last season’s Division Two winners and runners-up face off against each other in Division One.

Budmouth B and C battled each other with the young Budmouth C team (average age 14 years and three months) coming out on top 23-17.

Jamie Blair scored the full nine points with Ethan Gear and Will Jolliffe both notching six.

Budmouth B’s Ben Graham, who went unbeaten last season, was defeated in close matches by both Blair and Gear on this opening week but still contributed seven points to his team’s cause.

The league’s new team, Park District, made a winning start to their maiden campaign with a convincing 29-7 triumph over Colliton X.

Both John Ryan and Geoff Ware score nine points apiece with Ray Cody just missing out with eight.

Raj Lehal got Colliton’s only win with a tight 3-2 win over Cody.

Current Division One champions, Land Registry, have morphed into Springfield A and they got their season off to a positive start with a 26-8 victory over last year’s runners-up, Wyke A.

Steve Jackson and new player Thomas Babler top scored with a maximum nine points.

Sai Maganti and Steve White both notched victories over Springfield’s Craig Stanton but they were unable to influence the result.

The other Budmouth team in Division One, their A-team, had a very good opening victory winning 27-9 against a strong YMCA side.

Tom and Lily Cherry and Sam Millar won all nine singles matches for the loss of just six sets before Brian Hansford and John Cox restored some respectability with a 3-0 doubles win.

Division Two opened with a match between two newly-promoted school sides, All Saints and Budmouth D, in which the former came out on top in a close 21-17 success.

Despite Neil Hardisty scoring nine points, he was unable to stop promising youngsters Ben Hannigan (seven) and brothers Luke and Dan Dadds (six apiece) from building an unassailable lead before Eddie Knell and Tom Lydford came from 2-1 down to win the doubles for Budmouth.

Preston B sit atop the division after the first week having registered a strong 29-9 win over Pilgrims A.

They won all but one of their 10 matches with only John Hunnisett registering a win for Pilgrims after coming from 2-1 down in a marathon with Ros Page.

The only other match in Division Two this week saw Shipton Gorge B secure a 28-12 victory over Preston C.

Graham Albertella and Derek Wheeler both hit the full nine points with Brian Cammell backing them up well with eight.

Eddie Chapman scored a very respectable seven points for Preston after winning one match and losing the other two 3-2 after having been 2-1 and 2-0 in those.

Division Three sees two Shipton Gorge teams at the top and bottom of the pile at this very early stage.

Their C team had a 27-9 win over Pilgrims B with Dan Corren and Dave Poole securing nine points each. Richard Ellerby and Ken Winship both had victories against Shipton’s John Newman before they teamed up for a doubles defeat to Corren and Poole.

New team Shipton Gorge Youth are bottom by a single point after their inaugural match in the league finished in an 25-8 loss to the experienced Colliton C.

Andy Ray top scored for Colliton (9) but Shipton’s Patrick Harper (7) notched up wins against both Katherine Bundy and Peter Loakes to give them some confidence for future weeks.

The two STEPS teams faced each other in a keenly-contested match in which team M beat team J 24-11.

Richard Wood (9) top scored on the night for the victors which included a mammoth 3-2 win over Tom Lane (8) having been 2-0 down.

Wyke C kicked off their season with a 22-13 triumph over Preston D.

Roy Sharp enjoyed three 3-0 wins to pick up nine points for Wyke while stalwart Malcolm Smith (6) picked up two victories for Preston in his other matches.

The final Budmouth team also got off to a winning start this week with the girls of Budmouth E beating a vastly more experienced Springfield D side in the closest match of the week.

A sparkling performance from April Heasman pocketed her a full nine points despite being pushed all the way by Dave Moth (eight).

Rosa McKechnie (four) and Edith Dedman (three) contributed vital leg wins for Budmouth to leave the tie level at 16-all going into the doubles.

Heasman and McKechnie proved too strong for Moth and league president Mike Richardson to secure a 19-16 win.

Full results and averages can be found at ttleague.co.uk