This year’s State Doubles Championships were held at Club d’Adelaide in warm and sunny conditions.
The Women’s championship featured a record field of 13 teams and the competition was very tight. Every team won at least one game, but the top three qualifiers from the preliminary rounds were all knocked out in the quarter finals, meaning that no-one got through the day unscathed. In fact, the eventual champions made it with five wins out of seven games while no other team won more than four – a remarkable scenario.
I’ve noticed many times in the past that when two teams play each other twice in a tournament, you don’t often see the same team win both games. That curious quirk was certainly evident in this competition. There were five instances where teams who played each other in the qualifiers met again in the knockout rounds. The result was a different winner in each case.
The last two teams standing both featured in the aforementioned list on their way to the final and then for a second time in the final itself. Rada Pierre & Tina Stockley had soundly defeated Deb Rodda & Anna O’Connor in their earlier game, but the ‘curse of the rematch’ struck again and it was the latter who won the one that mattered. That earned Anna her third SA Women’s Doubles title and Deb her ninth. Deb is now once again equal with Selina to have the most wins in this event.
The Open was also a tight competition, but there was one team who managed to win all their games. No prizes for guessing who that was. Ned Dally & Van Nguyen won the day with a hard-fought victory over Arwed Turon & Nathan James in the final. Special congratulations go to Ned for the first state title win in his brief but rapidly progressing pétanque career. As for Van, this was the third time he has claimed the Open Doubles crown and he is now, once again, a concurrent state champion in all four formats (Open Singles, Doubles, Triples and Mixed Doubles).
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to Club d’Adelaide for hosting the event and to Terry Hall for taking on the umpiring duties.
Download the full report (PDF): Scores-2026-27-State-Doubles.pdf