Junior Mallets Welcome to Junior Mallets, celebrating the fun, friendships and competitions of our young people.
WOKING GC D-LEVEL TOURNAMENT By Sara Anderson, Woking Croquet Club The day started with a quick panic as one of the players got the wrong day for the tournament and didn’t show. Fortunately, the elder sister of Fifi, one of Woking’s Junior players, had kept her whites in the car just in case, and was delighted to step in. Ana stood in at no notice, helping out the Manager, Sara, by ensuring all the players of both blocks got a minimum of 5 matches each. Much to everyone's relief the rain stayed away and instead we had a warm breeze and by the end of the day we were basking in lovely sunshine. This tournament was the first D Level held at Woking and a great success. Help and advice was given to 8 out of the 12 players with completing their handicap cards for level, as this was to be their first Tournament. It was lovely, also, to see two sisters compete, and as luck would have it they were not in the same block…..between the two of them they helped lower the average age by quite a bit. The standard of play was very good and really encouraging to see players calling for a ref for possible iffy shots and helping each other out with watching the sequence of balls. Maureen Ward was the only player to win all her block matches and was the first player to qualify for the semi-final. Ana narrowly pipped Felicity Grubb to the 2nd place in the same block as she had higher net hoops. Block B was also very close with the top two players each having 4 wins. Richard Law took the first position with higher net hoops followed closely by Jane Drury. Both semi finals were strongly contested by all 4 players. Jane finished first beating Maureen, followed by Ana who beat Richard, earning their places in the final. Maureen and
Richard to play for third and fourth place. Maureen took the third place with a 7-4 win. Then Jane and Ana started the final….with a good audience of around 12 people. Ana got off to a good start running the first two hoops, Jane quickly caught up, and then it was a fight for every hoop with lots of clearing balls. Youth on her side, Ana didn’t seem at all phased with playing in a final and there seemed to be no nerves, although she said she was bricking it. However, we spectators and coaches from Woking all felt her nerves instead. Ana was stoic and even when Jane kept clearing balls and the hoops each became a long fight between them, she never seemed disheartened or phased by it. Maybe she should play poker if she can hide all her feelings and nerves that well. Beating Jane 7-4, Ana was delighted and very excited….and everyone shared her joy. Both Jane and Felicity, with all their wins, earned a handicap reduction from 10 to 9. Congratulations all.
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