Eagle swoops to bag national final spot

PHYLLIS Court’s Rob Eagle was the surprise winner of the Henley club’s National B-Level (4+) Series tournament last week, when he came through the field from 15th seed to become the first Phyllis Court winner since 2012.

This win takes Eagle to the B-Level National final at Budleigh Salterton in September.

Eagle only came into the starting line-up from the reserves list 10 days before the tournament and surpassed expectations in making the halfway stage cut for the second phase main event knock-out.

Along with four other Phyllis Court players, he was drawn to play his block games at joint hosts Blewbury’s ground, and he set out his intentions in his first game, with a win against more fancied clubmate Raghu Iyer.

Only two more wins followed, and the closeness of the block results ensured wins were evenly distributed between the eight players and qualification rested on the last round results.

Eagle lost but his partner Helen Essa scored a great win over the top seed Michael Marcel in a Phyllis Court head-to-head and that result moved Essa up to three wins, held Marcel on the same tally, and both tied with Eagle, allowing the latter to grab the crucial fourth place in the block on net hoops.

Kevin Ward also qualified from the Blewbury block with one more win than Eagle, along with Brian Jamieson (Blewbury) and Brian McCausland (Nailsea). In the Phyllis Court-based block, Alastair Broom was unbeaten until round six of seven, when he lost by a single point to his chairman Patricia Mulcahy.

Jane Powell (Ealing) finished on five wins to also qualify cleanly and four players, Mulcahy, Steve Baldwin and Edward Patel all tied on four wins, for two qualification places. Patel had the better net hoops score by one from Mulcahy and they both made it to the day two main event knock-out at Phyllis Court, ahead of Baldwin who fell into the plate event at Blewbury, along with Marcel, Essa and Iyer.

Day two enjoyed a swift start to the best of three games with Phyllis Court represented in three of the four quarter-final matches and most home interest on the derby between the previous day’s dominator Broom and clubmate Eagle who raced to an unexpected quick 7-3 game win.

Broom lost the second game as well 7-6 and out went the day’s favourite, along with Phyllis Court’s Ward who ran Powell close but lost 5-7, 6-7. In the all-visitors match Patel beat McCausland 7-3, 7-4. Mulcahy eventually came through 7-3, 6-7, 7-6 thanks in no small part to a bold but unwise tactical choice by the Blewbury player at the last hoop.

Both semis went to three games, and Powell’s steady play was enough to counter Mulcahy’s more aggressive line and now excellent jumping skills, and the latter went down 7-3, 5-7, 4-7. The other semi was decided at the last hoop of the deciding game.

Eagle got away from Patel 7-3 in the first but Patel’s 7-5 that followed should have given him momentum for the third. Eagle raced into a 4-1 lead before Patel clawed back into contention.

Eagle came through the back of the deciding hoop with no choice but to offer Patel a routine jump shot to win, but he seemed to take that too quickly as Eagle won 7-6.

The final was one-way traffic, and although Powell was well in both games she trailed Eagle throughout and the Phyllis Court man won 7-5, 7-5.

At Blewbury, Phyllis Court’s Marcel won the plate event from clubmate Iyer by a single point.