Saturday 19 August 2017

Quarter-Finals, Here We Come! Venice Cup, Lyon, Day 7

We enter the final match of the round-robin, secure in the knowledge that we have qualified for the knock-out stages.   Our main concern now is to finish as high as we can because the top three teams are allowed to choose their opponents in the quarter-finals.

The reigning champions and hosts, France, will miss out and USA I, the beaten finalists from two years ago, also, are in a precarious position.   Indeed, they will be relying on us to inflict a heavy defeat on Poland, currently in eighth position, in our match, which will give them a chance to move up from ninth.

We have played well so far today showing great resilience after yesterday's disappointment which had left the team somewhat battered and bruised.  In fact,  from my point-of-view, things might have gone from bad to worse as I made my way back to the hotel through the park.   I had been perusing a copy of Sally and Fiona's convention card when I was somewhat surprised by what seemed to be a giant red squirrel hurtling towards me.  Fortunately, it caught sight of the convention card, froze in sheer terror, turned and ran for cover.   I have since found out that there are many red squirrels in the park and that they scurry about all over the place.

Meanwhile, with one match to go in the round-robin, the current standings are:

1SWEDEN276.71
2CHINA259.51
3INDONESIA254.98
4RUSSIA253.26
5ENGLAND251.84
6ISRAEL242.48
7NETHERLANDS239.64
8POLAND229.67
9USA1221.62
10FRANCE209.56
11ITALY206.92
12ARGENTINA199.77
13AUSTRALIA198.49
14USA2190.25
15BRAZIL186.31
16EGYPT180.87
17CHINESE TAIPEI166.11
18NEW ZEALAND160.27
19MOROCCO158.85
20CANADA118.31
21INDIA98.79
22JORDAN91.29


Let's see who we get in the quarter-finals!

Derek :)

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