GC World champs - Day 2, Rotorua summary - Chris Clarke
Jenny Clarke
As yesterday, here's Chris's summary from yesterday, when he was at Rotorua. Posted last night to the Notts and Aussie email lists.
##Rotorua, Day 3##
Another lovely day for weather - slightly less sunny. I played at Rotorua for the first time and almost certainly the last. I really don't understand why a World Champs was given to a bid which includes 5 such poor lawns and multiple venues 90klms away from HQ, when Christchurch offered 20 high quality lawns without 10klms of each other.
Anyway, the day started with block G in play. The standard of play was poor, apart from Jared Keeman who played pretty well all day. The other block there was block D and Tobi Savage provided plenty of entertainment with a variety of powerful strokes including a jump shot over the peg to jump over a ball in hoop 12 (I only heard the YESSSSS!) as I was playing!!
Evan Newell was allowed to play a 4.5 hour match today against Carl Uhlman without having a time limit imposed. John Christie thoroughly deserved his straight games win against me. Hisham Abu Osbaa lost both his matches - his style of precision clearance wasn't suited by the hilly and bumpy lawns. Block D ended with Shoukry beating Tarek to give 4 players a chance of winning the block and making all 4 highly likely to qualify.
Taking position from 9 to 10 required players to allow for 6 feet of hill whilst there was a 3 yard dome in front of hoop 9 on lawn 2. Apparently a geothermal geyser lurks underneath!!! Marwan bounced over several clearances.
Elsewhere, it was a good day for the U21 qualifiers as both Josh and Marwan won their matches to keep their play-off hopes very much alive. Reg is just waltzing through his games conceding minimal hoops. It really does show how useful net hoops are as a decider in GC. I still haven't seen half the players in the competition, so I can't really give you a good guess at likely medallists.
I'm just hoping to avoid a last 32 match against Jenny who had two more good wins today and is probably playing better than me at the moment.
As yesterday, here's Chris's summary from yesterday, when he was at Rotorua. Posted last night to the Notts and Aussie email lists.
##Rotorua, Day 3##
Another lovely day for weather - slightly less sunny. I played at Rotorua for the first time and almost certainly the last. I really don't understand why a World Champs was given to a bid which includes 5 such poor lawns and multiple venues 90klms away from HQ, when Christchurch offered 20 high quality lawns without 10klms of each other.
Anyway, the day started with block G in play. The standard of play was poor, apart from Jared Keeman who played pretty well all day. The other block there was block D and Tobi Savage provided plenty of entertainment with a variety of powerful strokes including a jump shot over the peg to jump over a ball in hoop 12 (I only heard the YESSSSS!) as I was playing!!
Evan Newell was allowed to play a 4.5 hour match today against Carl Uhlman without having a time limit imposed. John Christie thoroughly deserved his straight games win against me. Hisham Abu Osbaa lost both his matches - his style of precision clearance wasn't suited by the hilly and bumpy lawns. Block D ended with Shoukry beating Tarek to give 4 players a chance of winning the block and making all 4 highly likely to qualify.
Taking position from 9 to 10 required players to allow for 6 feet of hill whilst there was a 3 yard dome in front of hoop 9 on lawn 2. Apparently a geothermal geyser lurks underneath!!! Marwan bounced over several clearances.
Elsewhere, it was a good day for the U21 qualifiers as both Josh and Marwan won their matches to keep their play-off hopes very much alive. Reg is just waltzing through his games conceding minimal hoops. It really does show how useful net hoops are as a decider in GC. I still haven't seen half the players in the competition, so I can't really give you a good guess at likely medallists.
I'm just hoping to avoid a last 32 match against Jenny who had two more good wins today and is probably playing better than me at the moment.
Chris
09 Feb 2015