The Hindu : Sport / Bridge : Indian Seniors miss the boat

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Sunday, Oct 07, 2007
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Sport - Bridge

Indian Seniors miss the boat

R. Jayaram

Chennai: Participating for the first time in the Seniors Bowl — this is the fourth edition — India (J.P. Goenka, Ashok Ruia, Subhash Gupta, Archie Sequeira, Ashok Vaidya and R. Sridharan) just missed a quarterfinal berth in the World bridge championship at Shanghai.

They convincingly won their last three round robin matches, collecting 64 out of 75 victory points for a tally of 327 VPS and still failed to catch up with eighth qualifier Indonesia which scored only 29 VPs for the day but finished on 346 VPs.

The earlier big defeats against USA-1 (7-23), Brazil (9-21), 15th round defeat against Poland (4-25) and 18th round defeat against leader Canada (5-25) contributed mainly to this. It is worth noting that all the above countries are in the last eight.

The Bermuda Bowl was punctuated by a shocking surprise and a nerve-racking cliffhanger as well, on Saturday. The 2003 winner and the 2005 runner-up, USA-2, failed to qualify for the last eight.

They won their last match against fourth qualifier Norway 19-11, but had they collected the full 25, the Americans would have pipped South Africa by half a victory point for the eighth qualifying spot.

Thrilling moments

Even more thrilling was the manner in which South Africa qualified.

With just three boards remaining to be scored in the last round, USA-2, Japan, Brazil and South Africa were racing neck and neck. First Japan and then USA-2 dropped out of the reckoning.

When the Brazil match was completed, they were on 326 and the eighth position. South Africa was on 325.5, but there was one more board to be scored. They were trailing Chinese Taipei by 8 IMPs (translated, it meant 17-13 VPs in China’s favour).

Vital point

Miraculously, the South Africans gained 3 IMPs in that last board and the score became 14-16. South Africa had gained that vital victory point to pip Brazil by half a point.

The Indian Open team was never in the race in the Bermuda Bowl, and in the Venice Cup the Indian ladies’ chances fizzled out in the last two days.

The qualifiers: Bermuda Bowl: Italy (375), USA-1 (362), Netherlands (349.5), Norway (348), Australia (342), Sweden (332), China SMEG (331) and South Africa (326.5).