International records set by Phyllis Court sides

PHYLLIS Court Croquet Club set new international records at home and abroad last weekend.

Taking the limelight was the club’s Euro B team who played a first team ever club match on foreign soil, in Latvia in the European Club Teams Competition on Saturday and Sunday.

That record was preceded on Friday at Phyllis Court where mixed skill levels teams entertained a touring side from Hyde Park CC, Adelaide, Australia, who became the furthest travelling team to play at the Henley club.

Doubles with changing partnerships were interspersed with singles games against closely handicap matching opponents. This led to several close results in which Des Walsh stood out for Phyllis Court with two singles wins and trio Hilary Cowley, Julia Green and Ruth Raunkiaer all scored a brace of doubles victories.

Hyde Park took a small lead into lunch and, although Phyllis Court pulled level in the mid-afternoon, the visitors re-established their lead to win 20-15 at the close.

In Latvia, Phyllis Court had it all to do against higher ranked opponents, hosts IKK Ikskile and Finnish team Tolkis with fellow English team Woodall Spar also having made the long trip to Eastern Europe.

Phyllis Court started with a bang against Tolkis from Finland, with two 7-3 doubles wins for chairman Patricia Mulcahy and team captain Raghu Iyer and Alastair Broom partnering Kevin Ward, but in the following eight singles, only Mulcahy recorded a win in a 7-3 team match loss.

Next up hosts IKK Ikskile won both doubles games but were overhauled by Phyllis Court who won three of the first-round singles.

Mulcahy’s 7-5 win against Latvian captain Roberts Stafeckis was the pick of the wins, backed up by Iyer’s 7-3 triumph against Silvija Freimane and Ward’s 7-5 win against Andrejs Savionovs.

In the second belt of singles IKK moved up a gear to win all four games and the team match 7-3.

On Sunday Phyllis Court finished in style with a 10-0 thrashing of Woodall Spa to cement third place.

On the regional front Phyllis Court A travelled to Winchester last week for a second 5-3 victory of the season in the Southern Federation Open League in which Chris Roberts won two matches and teammates Rick Lilley, Andy Jones and Helena Fensome all won one and lost one.

Phyllis Court B won their second league match 5-3 against Blewbury B but the club’s association handicap croquet team could not overcome Caversham’s handicap advantage and went down 3-1.

In individual play, Philip Rowley continues to impress at golf croquet’s higher handicap level and was undefeated in winning the Guildford D-Level (10+) Series tournament last week.