Cheryl Bromley and Mohammad KamalGreetings from Melbourne! Today was a fun day at the Victorian Croquet center as the doubles portion of the Ramsis Cup was completed. It was great to reconnect with players from all over. The Ramsis Cup originally began as a match between Egypt and a Rest of the World (RoW) and has been played twice previously in 2008 and 2016. Both have been won by the RoW by a narrow margin of 11 matches to 10.
However, this year's Ramsis Cup was modified to be a match between the Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere players. At the conclusion of Wednesday's singles matches, the North had a 4-2 match lead heading into today. The USA's Sherif Abdelwahab posted a match win and Matt Griffith went the distance but unfortunately lost his match in 3 games.
I had the privilege of being paired with compatriot Mohammad Kamal for a doubles match against two Australian ladies. Having just arrived yesterday it was great to be able to get some practice in ahead of the match and then be tested in match play. Mohammad and I pulled out a 7-5, 7-6 victory and by the time I left there had been no official announcement as to what the overall final South vs. North outcome was. I'm assuming they will tell us tomorrow at the player's meeting. (Ramsis Cup Scores)
For the Main Event, players have been divided up into eight blocks of 10 and on Saturday morning we will all disperse to our designated venues to begin our block matches. There are five venues in total that are being used that are spread out on the outskirts of the city. Up to the minute results can be found on croquetscores.com
One other note - Congratulations to Hal Denton from the US who competed in the qualifying event. He notched four match wins in block play!! Unfortunately, in the end it wasn't enough to propel him into the final playoff, but well done Hal nonetheless!
Player Journal by Cheryl Bromley, USA