5 minute read
70 PLAYERS VIE FOR GC NATIONAL TITLE in VIrginia
By DAMON BIDENCOPE
Arrival on Sunday, September 17, at the Chesapeake Bay Croquet Club (CBCC) was mixed with heightened anticipation and some exhaustion from tournament draw preparation. The first impression of being greeted by the sight of the 16 newly added courts laid out in a massive square of green closely mown grass was quite something. With 24 full-size regulation courts, CBCC is the largest croquet facility in the world. More than 70 USCA members participated in this event.
Following recent event formatting trends, the doubles tournament section was held Monday through Wednesday, and the singles portion was scheduled for Thursday through Sunday. This allowed players wishing to only play in either just doubles or singles to do so. First Flight games were played with a time limit while championship games were played to a result.
The First Flight doubles teams were seeded into four blocks of six teams. The top 12 teams progressed to a draw seeded on block performance into the First Flight Doubles Knockout.
The block game successes saw Jack Rush/Ryan Eberlein, Rob Turner/Dan Horton, Sandy Janitz/Walt Janitz and George Pendleton/Christine Smith emerge as top block finishers and earned a first-round bye in the knockout. The other qualifying teams for the knockout included Marc Stearns/MaryCarol Stearns, Geri O’Neill/Kathleen Skoog, Bill Simmons/Steve Jackson, Ellie Griffith/Lynda Bjorklund, Alex Galasso/Mary Galasso, Robert Smothers/Shep Slater, Linda Maloney/Pam Groh and Karen and Chris Weihs. After the four rounds of knockout play, the final pair standing was Bill Simmons and Steve Jackson beating Rob Turner and Dan Horton 7-6 in a closely fought final doubles game.
The other First Flight doubles teams all progressed into the First Flight Doubles Plate. The First Flight doubles plate was won by Neill Trimble and Bruce Hindin, with Kim Allen and Michael Allen in the runner up position.
Championship Doubles was divided into two six team blocks with the top four teams progressing to a best-of-three knockout seeded on block performance. The semifinals had the remaining teams of Matthew Essick/Sherif Abdelwahab, Jim Jamison/Daren Guffy, Ahab Abdelwahab/Tamer Hatata, Tom Balding/Blake Fields. Following successes by Essick/S. Abdelwahab and Balding/ Fields, the final matchup was set. The first game went 7-5 to Essick and Abdelwahab and many would have thought the result would be quickly decided with a second. Unfortunately for the top seeded pair, Balding and Fields were not cooperative, and a slow fuse was lit with the duo prevailing in the second game 7-4. The third game saw a croquet player’s nightmare with Balding and Fields playing lights-out croquet. The result was a 7-0 third game and Balding and Fields were the runaway 2023 USCA GC National Doubles Champions.
The Championship Doubles Plate was won by Hammond Rauers/Dallas Denny over runners up Justin Fields/Jim Podraza.
It seems that the only guarantee about early plans and schedules is that they will need tweaking and changes. From early in the week, the late-week weather was uncertain. To manage for this possible outcome, the players cooperated and played singles on Wednesday and extended playing times on the likelihood that a significant portion of allotted singles time would be lost to the approaching storm.
The First Flight Singles was six blocks of six players with the top two moving into the knockout. The semifinals saw Daniel Horton prevail 7-6 over Jack Rush, and Britt Bell 7-4 over Brian Brittain. Horton produced a strong performance winning the final 7-2 over Bell, which capped a strong tournament with the doubles runner-up trophy providing good ballast for the Series 100 Land Cruiser and the ride back to the North Carolina Mountains.
The Championship Singles competition was four blocks of nine, seeded on WCF rankings with the top four performers in each block qualifying for the best-of-three knockout. Qualifying into the top 16 knockout were Matthew Essick, Jimmy Huff, Adam Barr, Billy Harper, Tom Balding, Jim Teel, Marc Stearns, Amr Hamdy, Brian Lozano, Tamer Hatata, Kent Lovvorn, Blake Fields, Sherif Abdelwahab, Ellie Griffith, Damon Bidencope and Matt Griffith. The semifinal matches saw Essick best Hamdy 7-2, 7-4, and Abdelwahab best Fields 7-6, 7-3. With the finalists decided and all other games completed, we braced for the oncoming storm, which produced a complete washout on Saturday.
When Sunday arrived, however, the conditions were outstanding. The courts were freshly mown and running at good pace. The players delivered a fabulous match, which reversed the result from only one year ago with Abdelwahab the victor 7-5, 5-7, 7-4 and Essick the runner up. Congratulations to Abdelwahab becoming the 2023 USCA GC National Champion.
The Championship Singles plate was won by Cheryl Bromley over Jim Jamison 7-3, with Debbie Davidoff and Alex Galasso also reaching the plate semifinals.
The tournament directors were Damon Bidencope and Jay Hughes, and with the help and cooperation of all participants, we dodged the storm and experienced a thoroughly enjoyable event at the CBCC. The atmosphere was enhanced by the hospitality extended from the CBCC members Cynthia Fowler, Christine Smith, Nancy Crouch, Macey White, Steve Thurston and many others.
