By Eric Sawyer | Today was not our day.  A confluence of misfortunes bit us on the butt. We lost to Egypt, as expected.  Except we got steam-rolled by The Force, 6-0.  The only close match was Ben's spirited loss to world champion Ahmed Nasr in three games, with two games going to hoop 13.

And, as expected, Ireland slipped past Sweden. So we ended in a tie in our block with Ireland. The dreaded tie-break was in our future.  There is where the misfortune began.  Instead of it being played  tomorrow, as I thought, they decided to play it today at the end of the day.  Ugh.  While our lads were still languishing in the pasting received by Egypt, the Irish were riding the wave of happiness from just defeating Sweden.  Ugh x 2.  Our match with Egypt finished by  2:00 p.m.  The Irish match with Sweden was only half done.  So our lads had to wait two hours, in the cold weather, getting cold themselves, while the Irish were streaking toward a win and staying hot.  Ugh x 3.

The tie-break was the exotic series of three games, two singles and one doubles.  While the safe money was on Ben/Sherif playing doubles and almost assuring one of the needed two wins, captain Ben decided to go "all in" and put his chips on singles.  So he and Danny played singles, while David/Sherif played doubles.  The thinking must have been to put our two best players in two of the matches, placing the odds on winning both. 

However, Danny lost a close 7-5 match to Patsy Fitzgerald, who has been hot.  And Ben was shocked to lose to younger Charlie Von Schmieder, 7-6.  Hey, upsets happen often in GC, that's why I like to play it. :)  The doubles match did not need to conclude, because Ireland had clinched the tie-break.

So Egypt and Ireland progress to the play-offs.  The US and Sweden drop down to the plate.  We are the #3 seed in our block, meaning we will play the #4 seed in the other block, which will be either South Africa or Wales.  They have not reported the final score from the sixth match there, so I can't figure it out yet.

The Plate is a two-edged sword.  Winning it would be nice, at least we'd have something to show.  But if we lose both plate matches, we could face the possibility of being relegated to Tier 2  in four years. Yikes!

Although I'm sure our lads are despondent  tonight, I believe they will get their game faces on and play like champions  tomorrow.

In the other block, NZ beat England 4-2, but with one of the doubles matches going to three games and the Clarke couple winning both games 7-6.  So that test could have easily ended in a tie. NZ won their block and will face Ireland  tomorrow and  Thursday in the semi-finals.  Egypt will face England in the other one.  Rachel Rowe continued her strong play today with another singles win and a very close doubles loss!

So much for my prediction of SA making it to the play-offs.  And so much for me thinking we would beat out the plucky Irishman.  Rhys warned not to overlook them and he was right.  So are stopped clocks twice a day :)

The fog of depression is now starting to roll in.