CHARD Cs home game against Yeovil B on Friday was brought to an abrupt halt after the club lights (by council rules) automatically went out.

It could not have come at a more controversial time as Keith and Sari were facing two match points at 5-2 (40-15) down. After heated discussions it was agreed to split the points in half which meant that Yeovil won that tie due to having won the first set 7-5.

In the other match there was more controversy as Harry and Collette were cruising at 9-3 in the Championship tiebreak with eight match points, when the lights went out.

Fortunately for Chard, the Yeovil pair originally agreed to play on only to argue at the end of the match (when Chard won 10-5) that the points should have been split after hearing of the result on the other court.

The agreed final result was Chard eight points, Yeovil five, but interestingly, statistics show that if the lights had stayed on and Keith and Sari lost 6-2, while Harry and Collette claimed one of their eight match points, then both teams would have five sets each. This would mean that the match would have gone to the team who had more games which was Chard (53-52).

Next week Chard face a long trip down to Weymouth, hoping to win the eighth game in a row.