2019/20 SA State Doubles Championship

at: Prospect Pétanque Club 25 August, 2019

This year’s State Doubles Championship was held at Prospect in fine and mild conditions. Twenty-five pairs took part, including male, female and mixed-gender teams, which was the best attendance at this event for at least ten years.

The competition was more even than some might have predicted, with lots of close games and plenty of upsets. By the end of the four preliminary games, only one team remained undefeated and that was a portent of what was to follow.

The stand-out team on the day was the pairing of a young gun and emerging star with an established grand master of the game — Nick Armstrong & Maurice Belz swept all before them and are the new state champions. Well done, messieurs! This is the second SA state title for each of these players. Nick’s winner’s trophy will sit next to one from the 2107/18 Mixed Doubles, while Maurice is now the reigning champion in both Doubles and Singles.

Maurice Belz & Nick Armstrong

Congratulations must also go to Sue & Peter Matthews, who performed strongly all day and finished as runners-up and ‘the best of the rest’. Sue & Peter were part of a large contingent of teams from the fledgling Novar Gardens club that, on the whole, accounted for themselves very well.

There were eighteen female players taking part this year but, like last year, the majority opted to play in the Open, leaving too few to run a separate women’s competition. Nevertheless, as the only female pair to progress into the final eight, Deb Rodda & Wendy Bensen earned the title of Women’s Champions.