I posted this to the Austrailan and Notts croquet mailing lists yesterday. It's not my best work, but it might provide interest for some readers, so I thought I'd include it here for the records, and for those who don't subscribe to the two mailing lists.

Day 2 - Katikati

Hi everyone, this is a bit long, but Chris told me to write something, so here we go :-)

WCF Golf Croquet World Championships 2015 – Day 2 @ Katikati

Today started at Katikati with slightly hairy lawns, as the groundsman had apparently turned up, found something still on the lawns, and packed up his toys and gone home. Despite this the lawns were running at around 10 seconds first thing, and had some areas closer to 12 seconds by late afternoon.

Another perfect day weatherwise, with the winds of practice day just a memory.
Blocks E and B were at Katikati. My block was first on, so I was hoping for an early escape – not a chance!

First up I played Bernard Thys, the second-ranked Belgian, who took on a lot of very long hoops, and ran most of them! Game 2 was well under control, after a nice clearance at 10 to get near 11 until a really careless bit of play which went along the lines of “if I play down this line I’ll probably block myself from clearing that angled ball… nah, it’ll be sweet…oh, it’s not.” Game 3 started with a failed jump stroke, and a 2-0 deficit which took a bit of pulling back. Lucky in-off shooting at the half a ball I could see at hoop 11 in the decider finished that match off – phew!

On the lawn nearest the clubhouse Chris McWhirter was battering the hoops into submission against top seed in block D, Ahmed El Mahdi. Mahdi rallied and looked very strong in the remaining two games.

Meanwhile, up in the top corner of the venue (lawn 3?) Omar Fahmi was engaged in an epic battle with kiwi Sabri Mullaaliu. I didn’t see a lot of the match, but after 4 hours it came down to hoop 13 – which Omar ran from the north boundary to take the match.
Some sensible management saw his next match – against me – delayed to give Omar a break.
It also gave the lawns the opportunity to speed up significantly, and the hoops to start burrowing into the turf. The hoops were initially beautifully firm, but tended to get floppier as the day went by with the softish ground. The hoop carrots in the ground on several lawns were surrounded by wee bits of cardboard. On lawn 5 (I think, based on the layout of the lawns) where Sherif Abdelwahab played Lachy Hughes last in the evening the hoops needed resetting constantly. Interestingly, an issue that had been spotted yesterday and was again evident today is that the screws on the Atkins Quadway hoops were getting loose. I haven’t come across that much at all in the three years we’ve had Atkins hoops in Chch. At one point they players stopped so all hoops could be adjusted. Around that time the only major incident at the venue. Sherif had just failed hoop 1 twice where the ball had gone into the hoop, but then fallen back into a hole from which the hoop was unrunnable. He asked for the ground to be repaired. Was declined. Appealed. But the venue manager declined also. As it was he got 6-3 up on Lachy in the final game, but ended up in some strife as Lachy played some nice strokes, culminating in a huge clearance at hoop 12 where his ball flew up to adjacent to hoop 13. Sherif was saved by a good clearance from near hoop 2, and went on to win the match on hoop 12.

An interesting match from Block B in round 3 today at Katikati was Rachel Rowe v Hemi McLaren. Rachel had had a very near miss beating Mike McClure 7-6 in the decider after the kiwi mallet maker ran some good long hoops, while Hemi had a tough first-up match against Australian Terry Ericson. Rachel appeared to have slight control in both games, maintaining a 1-2 point lead throughout the match, which she won 7-5, 7-5.

I finally got to start on lawn 4 against Omar Fadhi. The lawns were a LOT faster than in the morning, particularly heading downhill towards corner 4. We’d only really met while waiting for the bus to the venue. He’s a lovely chap, and the match was possibly the most enjoyable I’ve ever played. That was my thought before even the end of the match. Omar felt like the better player throughout the match, taking a lead in all three games, and running some very solid hoops. He also has some excellent gentle clearances when needed. Aussie Graeme Wemyss, who played in the recent NZ GC Nationals suggested I liked chasing from behind. I don’t. Game 1 I somehow got back to 6-6. A nice clearance at 12 gave me control at 13 – but Omar cleared and yellow had to come back down the lawn, so we fought out 13 the old fashioned way. Omar got caught out heading up to the 13th hoop – downhill from 3 to 4 gets very fast, but uphill, and with the hairier ground in the northern quarter of the lawn he didn’t get past the hoop. I’d had a bit of luck with long hoops in the match, so went to the north boundary to try to get a free shot at 13. Omar’s next ball was quite northerly, but in the vicinity of the hoop. I put partner off north also, and was rewarded with two 7 yard shots at 13. Fortunately Omar missed a couple of long attempts also, as I needed a third long shot to win game 1.

Game 2 was even more one-sided, but I clawed back to 6-5 down and got to a point where Omar had about a 50 degree short hoop 12 to win the game and my balls were all over the hoop. He played a fantastic hoop stroke along the ground (and hard) – this despite the Atkins hoops which several international players are complaining are too difficult to run.

Game 3 was more of the same. 1-0 after a failed jump stroke was quickly 2-0, then 3-0. At that point it was a case of trying for some face-saving points, and the scoring sequence was 3-1 (yay!), 4-1, 4-2 (phew), 5-2 (oops), and a bunch of failed hoops. Time to go back to basics and some good clearing and some reasonable hoop running and suddenly it was 5-5, then 6-5 to me! Omar had some nice clearing at hoop 13 before missing a clearance from just off the south boundary at a ball in front of hoop 13 for a very unexpected win. I expect Omar to qualify for the KO, and get through at least the first couple of rounds – his hoop running was a bit average earlier in the tournament, and in the hit-up, but was solid during our match. Afterwards he pointed out he’d come unstuck underapproaching hoop 7 in all three games, as well as hoop 13 in game 1 – there was a significant difference in speed in that uphill, slightly green area.

The match took a bit over 2.5 hours, and the lovely scoring lady sat under an umbrella in the full sun for the entire match, resisting attempts to encourage her to retire to the shade of the trees “I’m supposed to be out here”. She did a sterling job.

I didn’t see much of the B block round in the middle of the day due to catching up on some work (the clubhouse has a zillion powerpoints and generously provided wireless internet access to all players), but saw a fair bit of the second round, including keeping an eye on the enormously powerful Ahmed Nasr who was crunching up Kim Reynolds of Australia on a neighbouring lawn. He looked pretty confident, and wasn’t troubled in the match.

Things were far less clear-cut on other lawns where Kevin Beard needed a quick snack and drink from mum Ellie after playing from hoop 2 to hoop 11 in the decider against local qualifier Jim Peck. He rallied quickly after a quick banana, winning the third 7-4.

This led to a late start for two matches; Simon Williams v Kevin Beard and Jim Peck vs Hisham Abdelgawad. I didn’t notice any mention of time limits, despite the long hours put in by scorers and other volunteers at the venue.

Jim Peck continued, undaunted by having an Egyptian opponent, and having entered the tournament through the qualifier. Hisham had plenty of chances to win the match, but Jim dug in, hit some long clearances, and took his chances to pull off a very unlikely win.

Kevin v Simon started very late, on a few distant lawn. Ellie kept a good eye on the score, and Kevin seemed generally in charge of the match. Simon was still frustrated after peeling Hisham through three hoops on his way to a 2-1 first-up match loss, but he managed to take the 13th point in game 2 to force a decider. With his usual wry smile he announced in the break before the final game that he rather wished he’d lost the match. Kevin is a very nice guy, and had arranged to take Simon back after the match. This freed up all the other players, and most of the volunteers to go home at the conclusion of Jim’s match, so we were left to check croquetscores.com to find the winner was Kevin Beard. That would have been around 7.30pm.

My fantasy team is doing ok at the moment, although Ed needs to pick up his game a little. I’m at Whakatane tomorrow (for those from other countries, the “wh” in Maori words is pronounced as an “f”, so be brave and respect the correct pronunciation).

Regards to all,
Jenny