Mavericks win 2025 FLM Super League in night of high drama
Henchmen show fight but let all three rubbers slip through their fingers
The Matthew’s Mavericks have won the 2025 FLM Super League despite being match point down in two of the three matches against the Shenkman’s Henchmen on the final day of play at the Queen’s Club on Friday.
The Mavericks had beaten the Henchmen in the round robin stages, but the most talked-about match of the first three days had been the battle between the team captains, where Robert Shenkman defeated Ben Taylor-Matthews for the first time in his career. In the final, the two lined up again against each other, with Shenkman looking to prove that the round robin result was not a fluke and Taylor-Matthews eager to show that it was.
The match was very tight, with its defining characteristic being the multitude of long backhand to backhand exchanges and excellent retrieval from both players. Both were biding their time, waiting for their opponent to blink first in the exchange — as such a lot of points were won or lost based on subtle errors in positioning. Taylor-Matthews was clearly up for the fight, and was ready for the slightly more expansive play on show from Shenkman, though the amateur champion was less prolific in his gallery hitting than he had been on Tuesday evening.
The two exchanged games through the early and middle phases of the first-to-9 set, neither having more than 2 games lead at any point. The turning point came in the 7-all game, where Shenkman served a loose side wall when defending a better than 2 chase, allowing Taylor-Matthews to get enough width on his force and cause the error from Shenkman. In the dying stages, Taylor-Matthews found his range on his target hitting, setting up the Mavericks with a 1-0 lead in the final.
The doubles followed, with Nino Merola and Louis Gordon representing the Henchmen and Lewis Williams and Vaughan Hamilton playing for the Mavericks. All four have rapid forces and powerful volleys, and all four were true to form in the match. Merola and Gordon got on top of the play on with some excellent defensive play from Merola and with Gordon playing his usual enforcer role. They moved from a tight 3-all battle to a comprehensive 8-3 lead, with the final game seeming only a formality.
However, the final game eluded them. Williams hit a net cord dedans to bring it back to 8-4 and grasped the momentum from there. Williams’s defence was excellent, parrying off Gordon’s forces with ease, while Hamilton played well in front of the tambour. The Henchmen saw their first match points at 8-5, but Hamilton saw both off with volley errors from Gordon, while Merola’s previously clean volleys were including more and more frame as the play became more desparate. That was the last chance for the Henchmen, as the next match points came in the 8-all game but this time they were for the Mavericks. Williams and Hamilton did not need a second look, securing an unassailable lead for their team, and the first FLM Super League title for the Mavericks. Ben Taylor-Matthews now finds himself in the unique position in having won both the top division of the IRTPA National League system and the USCTA National League within a fortnight.
The final match was therefore a dead rubber between Maverick Henry Henman and Henchman James Medlow. They did not let the lack of stakes show, fighting hard for every point and every game. Like the first match of the day, there was little to separate them throughout, with both players looking for play deep into the corners and retrieving well. The crowd were treated to their third thriller of the evening, again going into a deciding game. Medlow had two match points at 40-15 up but failed to convert them, with Henman sending it to deuce. Both had a couple of match points in the deuce exchange as well but eventually it fell to Henman, slotting a ball in the gallery to beat a hazard chase, and wrapping up a 3-0 victory for the Mavericks.
Match results:
Matthew’s Mavericks def Shenkman’s Henchmen 3-0
Ben Taylor-Matthews def Robert Shenkman 9/7
Lewis Williams & Vaughan Hamilton def Nino Merola & Louis Gordon 9/8
Henry Henman def James Medlow 9/8