Jose Riva checks out his 1B leave against James Death

2018 AC Worlds report – Day 6

Another still and sunny day at Kelburn meant that playing conditions were easy. The Riva v Death game “enjoyed” even easier conditions since they played on a lawn with five day old hoops. It was a high-quality match where a Death ball to 4-b was countered with a Riva ball to 1-b followed by a tpo with two balls pegged out 1 v 1-b. Death picked up a 2-ball break off the contact but missed his rush to h4. Riva then took position at 1-b and after Death missed an overly aggressive shot, finished next turn. In the second game, Riva went to 4-b 4th turn, failed to pick up a break 6th turn and finished after Death cornered 8th turn.

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The next match to finish was Paddy Chapman beating David Maloof 2-1 several hours later. Maloof had multiple opportunities to win the match, as did Chapman.

Samir Patel was next to finish after a marathon 2-0 victory against Greg Fletcher. Stephen Mulliner beat Aiken Hakes 2-1 in another match where a finishing turn was put down.

Finally, there was an absolute treat of a see-sawing match between Christian Carter and Greg Bryant. Greg reached rover and peg in the first game only to see Christian mount a comeback and win after almost 4 hours. The second game featured more failing to finish than I can remember for quite some time. Christian had already failed to finish from 4-b and peg when Bryant failed hoop 6 to give Christian a short roquet with a ball at penult and a ball at 4-b. Christian failed to finish again. Over an hour later, after a pegged out ending which started Christian 4-b and peg v Greg hoop 6 alone, both sides had put down more opportunities before a failed rover eventually cost Christian the game at 5:33 p.m. and subsequently the match. What a relief the manager had decided not to play best of 5 today and what a worry that silly 2 hour time limits might be required tomorrow.

At Wellington, Wilson beat Cumming in 90 minutes, Bamford beat Maugham despite Maugham having two good chances to take the second game and Hockey beat Trimmer. Wellington has been disappointingly slow - let's hope it is faster for the semifinals in two days time.

Tomorrow’s quarterfinals have one stand-out match in my opinion – Riva v Wilson. Both players play at a good pace and are attacking – it should be a fascinating contest.