The Hindu : Sport / Bridge : South Africa sitting pretty

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 08, 2007
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Sport - Bridge

South Africa sitting pretty

R. Jayaram

Chennai: Close on the heels of its “short-head” qualification on Saturday, South Africa (Alon Apteker, Chris Bosenberg, Tim Cope, Neville Eber, Craig Gower and Glen Holman) is on a dream run in its quarterfinal match against title holder Italy, in the Bermuda Bowl of the World championship in Shanghai.

The South Africans began well and established an early lead of 41 IMPs in the first segment itself. They increased it to 54 IMPs at the end of the third segment, the half-way stage. The scores read South Africa 122.7, Italy 68.

In the other quarterfinals in this event the scores are USA-1 142, Australia 36; Netherlands 140, Sweden 52 and Norway 124, China SMEG 31.

All the quarterfinal matches in this event as well as the Venice Cup and the Seniors Bowl will have three more segments of 16 boards each that will be played on Monday.

Close match

The quarterfinal match in the Venice Cup between China Global Times and England appears to be heading for a close finish. At the half-way stage, the score was England 66 and China Global Times 62.

While USA-1 is likely to go through to the semifinals in this event — it is ahead of Egypt by 59 IMPs — France and Germany are the other teams likely to make the grade. Both have established leads of over 30 IMPs against USA-2 and Canada respectively.

In the Seniors Bowl, Canada and USA-2 are leading comfortably in their quarterfinal matches against Brazil and Italy respectively.

In the other two quarterfinals, France is ahead of USA-1 by 36 IMPs (118-81.7) while Indonesia has established a lead of 22 IMPs over Poland (117-95).

A trans-national team event is scheduled for a late night start on Monday. The Indian challenge in this event will emanate from ‘Texas’ Venkatesh and his 1978 IIT-M teammates. It may be recalled that the Texan Aces won the silver medal in the European Open in June, creating history in Indian bridge.

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