The 2025 PFC Mallets Golf Croquet World Teams championship saw an exciting day of semifinals action yesterday with Team USA and Egypt advancing to the finals, which will start later today at the Northern Tasmanian Croquet Centre in St. Leonards, Tasmania.
Team USA was the first to punch their ticket as they took 2-0 singles and doubles wins over New Zealand in the first session of the day to get the required seven wins to clinch the test. After all of the action played out, the final was 9-4 in favor of the U.S. team.
2025 GCWTC FINAL
EGYPT VS USA LIVESTREAM
4:00 P.M. U.S. Eastern
For the U.S., Tom Balding offered the early signs of a successful day when he took a 7-6 win over New Zealand’s Edmund Fordyce in game one. There was some confusion though as it was originally mis-reported on croquetscores.com.
While that was being sorted out, Ben Rothman and Blake Fields scratched out a 7-6 win in game one to open their doubles match against Felix Webby and Levi Franks. In game two, Rothman and Fields left no doubt as they won 7-0 to get the test score to 6-2.
It was up to Fordyce to keep New Zealand alive, but the effort came up short as Balding got the 7-6 win to secure a place in the final for Team USA, ending a potential fourth rematch of NZL vs Egypt in the final.
Like the U.S., Egypt only needed two wins to clinch the test, but the featured livestream doubles match of Mohamed Nasr/Khaled Kamel (EGY) vs Robert Fletcher/Greg Fletcher (AUS) proved to be a marathon battle. In the background, Egypt’s Yasser Sayed was having more success as he took a 7-1, 7-6 win over Malcolm Fletcher to move the test to 6-2.
In the doubles, Nasr/Kamel took game one 7-5, but the Fletchers returned the favor in game two with their own 7-5 win. That set up a decider that went to the 13th hoop, which Australia claimed to stay alive at 6-3.
Sayed was already into his second match of the day, this time squaring off against Ed Wilson. After getting a 7-6 victory in the opener, Sayed closed it out 7-3 in game two to clinch a place in the final for Egypt. This will be Egypt’s fourth straight appearance in the GCWTC Tier 1 final. According to CroquetScores.com, no further matches were played and the test score was listed as 7-3.
LOOKING AHEAD
Team USA took a 4-2 win in the Block test between the two teams, losing both doubles matches, but winning all of the singles matchups. Based on the December 31, 2024, team rankings, the GCWTC final between Egypt and Team USA that will be played over the next features the #1 and #3 ranked teams in the world. For Egypt, that #1 position is quite familiar, while Team USA is currently at #3 and has moved around quite a bit in the rankings, despite having three GC world champions on the squad.
FRIDAY SCHEDULE
4:00 PM Eastern Estimated Start Time
CT3: B. Fields/B. Rothman (USA) vs K. Kamel/Y. Sayed (EGY)
CT5: M. Essick/T. Balding (USA) vs M. Nasr/M. Taha (EGY)
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CT3: B. Fields (USA) vs Y. Sayed (EGY)
CT5: M. Essick (USA) vs M. Nasr (EGY)
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CT3: T. Balding (USA) vs M. Taha (EGY)
CT5: B. Rothman (USA) vs K. Kamel (EGY)
Assumed livestream matches in italics.
LIVESTREAMING
The Youtube Live Sports channel has been showing action from Court Three during the event. A picture in picture of Court Five has been available at times, so that is presumably the reason for the Court 3 vs Court 5 assignments.
For more information on the 2025 PFC Mallets Golf Croquet WTC, visit www.gcworldteamstasmania2025.com.au. Photos courtesy of the 2025 Openshaw Shield Facebook page.