Croquet Tournament Results

SUMMARY 2021

DETAILED RESULTS 2021

AC 3 & Under Singles, 6th - 7th February 2021

The first Croquet NSW tournament for 2021 was played at the enlarged 4-court Tempe headquarters over the weekend of 6-7 February. All players were impressed with the new layout, and Rob Elliott and his team at Cooks River Croquet Club should be very satisfied with what they have achieved.

A full field of 16 took part, playing a knockout consisting of singles games in the first two rounds, and best-of-3 game matches for the last two rounds. An exhaustive set of knockouts was played, with first round losers in the "X" knockout going into the "Y" knockout, and second round losers going into the "Z" knockout. Losers in the first round of the "Y" knockout went into the "W" knockout. In addition to a final for each knockout, a play-off also took place top determine 3rd and 4th places.

The draw was arranged by p[lacing the top two seeds (Stephen Richards from Canberra and Rob Elliott from Cooks River) into positions 1 and 2 in a standard 16-person knockout. Positions 3 and 4 were then filled by random allocation between the 3rd and 4th seeds (Tim Murphy and Alan Walsh), after which positions 5 to 8 were filled, also by random allocation, between the 5th to 8th seeds, and finally the same procedure for the 9th to 16th seeds.

Only one first round game went against the seeding, with Don Wright (Cooks River) beating Mike Hughes (Cammeray) 16-15, golden point. Two other first round games were very close, with Gareth Denyer beating Kerri-Ann Organ 22-21 and Alan Honey beating John Bartrop 23-22. The first three rounds were all completed on Saturday, with no round 3 matches going beyond 2 games.

Matches on Sunday were Stephen Richards v Rob Elliott in the overall final with Alan Walsh and Rosie Landrebe in the 3rd/4th match. Stephen beat Rob 26-12, 12-26, 26-11 to take out the title. Alan beat Rosie in two games to finish third.

The "Z" final was a local Canberra battle, with Alan Honey emerging victorious over Tim Murphy 26-8, 24-26, 26-19. The 3rd/4th place match saw Don Wright beat Gareth Denyer 10-22, 15-12. 10-7.

In the "Y" knockout, Mike Hughes beat John Bartrop in two games to win the final. Meanwhile in the 3rd/4th playoff Steve Miles and Kerri-Ann Organ decided that they had had enough croquet for the weekend after Kerri-Ann won the first game 26-20 and Steve won the next game 26-3.

The "W" final saw Ted Woodley prevail over Ron Buist 14-19, 10-9, 12-9, while the battle for 3rd place went to David Stanton over Nerida Taylor 11-9, 17-8.

As can be seen from some of the low scores towards the end of Sunday, many players were feeling the effect of playing 6 or 7 games over two very hot days.

David Stanton
Tournament Manager

AC 5 & Under Mixed Doubles, 20th - 21st February 2021

This tournament was played at Tempe headquarters over the weekend of 20-21 February. A field of 4 pairs took part, playing a double round robin over the two days. The weather was fine and warm, quite muggy at times. The new lawns at Tempe were playing well, nice and fast on Saturday, a bit slower on Sunday after some overnight rain, and with just a few surprising roll-offs.

The first round robin, on Saturday, was played as Alternate Stroke Doubles, and this proved to be a great success. The pairings were all made up of one player on a negative handicap with a partner on a handicap between 4 and 8. This made for interesting games, which were also very enjoyable for all concerned.

The second round robin, on Sunday, reverted to normal doubles, putting a bit more pressure on the higher-handicap players to play well. Some responded to this pressure better than others, with Liz Montague and Peter Landrebe finishing as runners-up to Peter Montague and Rosie Landrebe by the narrowest possible margin of 1 net hoop, both teams having 4 wins from 6 games.

David Stanton
Tournament Manager