Concentration on board BlackMatch Racing at Match Race Germany. Image copyright Gareth Cooke/Subzero Images.
by David Swete
Finishing the round robin today we ended with a scorecard of 8 wins and 3 losses, tied at the top of the leaderboard with Mathieu Richard and Ian Williams. A countback was needed to decide the top qualifying team who would proceed directly through to the semi final and it was Richard who came out on top, due to wins against both Williams and ourselves. This left us in second position and safely through to the shortened quarterfinal, also earning the right to choose who we were to race.
Todays victories came against Jesper Radich, Ian Williams and Torvar Mirsky, while we suffered a disappointing loss to our ‘bogie man’ Paolo Cian. Both our victories over Williams and Mirsky were convincing, while against Radich we had to come from behind. The Danish team held a slender lead at the first top mark however we made a nice move down the first run to roll over the top of them and gain a lead that we were able to defend well to the finish.
Given the choice of who we would race in the quarterfinal we chose Swede Magnus Holmberg and his Kiwi Team, made up of the Waka Racing boys. This was a tough decision especially as they won all 4 of their matches today in a great display of sailing, nevertheless we are confident we can break our curse of never winning a quarterfinal having chosen our opponent.
The other quarterfinal match ups are Torvar Mirsky verses Peter Gilmour and Ian Williams taking on Jesper Radich.
BlackMatch would like to again thank their sponsors FedEx Express and Events Clothing/Line 7 New Zealand, two world renowned companies that have stood by us and made this possible. We would also like to thank our new sponsor Steinlager Pure and Emirates Team New Zealand, as without their support we would not have this opportunity.
BlackMatch Racing
Match Race Germany
World Match Racing Tour
