Gday readers if we have any out there today, apologies for being late with the commentary I have been playing a match of my own on this beautiful morning to start off the new year

Today we have two in form players and brothers robert and malcolm fletcher playing a best of 5 for the Victorian Open singles championship, they are currently in game 3 with the first two games going one a piece

as we join in now rob is beginning his first ball round being B, up to hoop 3 with the court nicely laid out
this is after malcolm made 9, rob missed and mal dropped a standard

mal was fairly unlucky having come through hoop 5 to land hampered from his receiver ball by the peg, he then shot at an 8y h6 pioneer which may have had some furniture from the peg in the way and missed onto the north boundary on the end of B baulk

rob then shot at the ball on thr boundary perhaps slightly under 11y away missing leaving malcolm with another chance to get in. Unfortunately this was followed my mal failing 6

Robs break has been pretty standard so far, nothing unusual as yet, it also appears he will be setting a 4b leave rather than a 1b leave like he did in g1 to play for the tpo

yep, 2b is loaded with k and mals penult ball has gone to 1b, will be interesting to see what leave he sets up, having favoured horizontal spreads or tea ladys most of the tournament

balls are tight around 1b which suggests an n or msl

NSL it is with mals h6 ball going to 1.5y off WB level with h6 in standard position

while robs finishing off his break i may as well talk about the other games

game one was mal around to 4b third turn, rob hit and set tea lady after 6
then went on to tpo mal and peg both off
some interaction later mal got into a 2 ball break with a couple of cracking shots
took himself to penult where he missed a ball 2yE of penult from the NB
after a couple of defensive shots rob made 3b, then 4b next turn so both balls were on penult
I missed some of the interaction between due to my own game but the short of it was rob hit and finished

game two saw mal attempt a sextuple, failing on 1b and 3b
rob went to 4b with a spread
mal hit and went to the beg with his 1b ball
rob missed mal finished

so robs finished his 9 here and is very south with his balls on the EB

possibly due to mal favouring the b baulk shot? as the ball at 4 looks pretty standard and rob could have gone anywhere

mals shooting from a baulk which is a good choice seeing as rob is most likely to finish in these fairly easy conditions

misses by almost nothing

robs got an on time for 2-1 lead

all very standard from robert here, although is rolling to h2 from 5 y out

lands safely 5 feet infront, I say safely due to the hoops being trivial

courts are running somewhere between 9-10.5 seconds, they may have got a touch faster than that late yesterday in patches but nothing of any concern. The wide hoops and slow lawns have given for some excellent looking scores with both rob and mal sextupling well. The only thing that has been of any concern is the hillyness of the lawns, which has caught everyone here out from time to time this event but is a standard feature of coming to play at cairn lea

robs got his first peel through about 2 yards and has rushed back to 1yw of c3 with his h5 pioneer sitting 1y in front at a 5 degree angle... so in summary all very straightforward from here

no rush out of b5 but the roll is perfect

we join back in with me having found my jumper and robert up to 3b

he has though somehow managed to not get partner infront of rover so will have to peel it straight

that area is one of the quicker patches i mentioned before and may have just caught robert out there

The middle 4 courts have not been used this tournament due to top dressing which is not a bad thing at all for those of you who have played here at cairn lea before. this does mean however the final is being played on court ten, which is comfortably one of the better courts at the venue, that being said it does make commentary somewhat more tricky being so far away and having a couple of shelter sheds interference so apologies for players or spectators who in future read this and go "thats not right, that ball was 6y away not 7!'

anyway rob is now up to rover and everything's neat and tidy

peeling from approx a foot infront (again its 80+ meters away so dont quote me)
peel is through and under control rushing to the peg

lands one and a half yards away...

game 3: 26tp-15 to Robert fletcher
match score is 2-1 in favour of the world number one

angus coulter has requested I give him a shoutout about a leave or something he woulda hit... I wish i could buddy but I wouldn't want to lie to the other readers <3 xx

start of game 3 and robs thrown in a pretty standard supershot with k

malleys gone hard at it and centerballed it onto the end ob b baulk, not in bad form is this young man

k has been stopshotted to 3.5yE of c2 slightly off the boundary and mal has chucked red into c4

rob shooting from b baulk at partner
hits

not surprisingly all three of these brothes have had multiple selections in fantasy croquet for the upcoming worlds

robs taken off to mals ball in c4 and landed 1y away
and i was using wrong lettering earlier my apologies, brain fade/10, so rob put in supershot with b and shot with k

oh wow thats aggressive, attempts to approach 1 from c4

clearly showing the quality mals playing at robs going for the 3.5y hoop at 35 degrees

Makes it down to blue near c2 and has red 6y NW of 2

I guess that just shows that when the world number one wants a third turn nine... he gets a third turn nine. excellently executed aggressive play here

he looked to play for a bit of hill in the roll to hoop 2 and got it where he needed it

third turn 9 is set up, ill get back with either the leave or... yeah the leave

a touch of trouble for robert around 5 with rushing his pioneer behind the hoop
copes without too many worries although his load for 1b is 5y south of the hoop

yet again not too many worries

thanks to my 5 readers, I have no worries with most of you being downstairs and watching the game live ;)

so roberts got all 3 balls around 3b here, interesting leave with the hoop one ball having a rush on r to the wb and his 4b ball being somewhere near where the rush is pointing

mals shooting from A baulk

hits the edge of b enough that its remained on the court

hustles to get a rush pointing at k

has rushed r a bit over 2y n of k on the wb and gets a nice rush to one which he hits well and is approaching from 1.5y se

through with rush pointing south

puts k to 3 rolling to b near h4, has a 'sort of' rush to red

hits it to a y infront of two... intentionally? #maybz

so the balls are currently in the right order for a tpo, but id be surprised if mal wanted a tpo that he'd try it now rather than after a 1b leave

settles for having a tight 4 ball break, will tune back in with the leave

heartbreak for malcolm as hes stuck in 6 attempting to get a rush back to 1 for a 1b leave

robs got the ball he wants to use at one but nothing great looking at the other end

thinking for a while, might have to settle for an 8y rush to 2 and a delayed

is rolling r down to 2 going to mals ball in the jaws, lands 2.5 yards away

peels it but has a straightforward croquet stroke to get a rush to one and have a standard tp for the championship

rush isnt perfect, pointing n of c2 although hes within a foot of the ball

hits it to 5 feet NE of 1

makes it at a slight angle but turns around and hits the 4 yarder cleanly

runs 2 from within a foot and has everything under control

if i were a betting man i wouldnt bet on robert finishing this... the payout would be too low

peels 4b through 18 inches

peels 4b through 18 inches

peels 4b through 18 inches

peels 4b through 18 inches

peels 4b through 18 inches

well thats an oops... cmon tim, you know us mellenials... no patients to let something send through... must keep trying!

robs break is still going as most of robs breaks do... excellently uninteresting

how about i try and make a bit of drama out of nothing here so my (not) many readers will have something to keep them from not falling asleep

robs rush on partner to rover after making 1b was fairly long, land only edged the shot (i know some real drama after i said id make some out of nothing... shocking!)

his load for 2b was also at least 4+y north of the hoop, but as robert does, hes coped well with a good croquet stroke

even with that he had to play the approach deep and smash through to the boundary, but has quickly re-tidied

wow i couldnt see from where i was sitting but peelee looks to be in thr front of the jaws of rover, so great croquet stroke, however his 3b pioneer is in the back of the jaws of two back

oh no sorry peelee mustnt have been in the jaws coz hes rushed it to 2b

perhaps wanted to safety of maintaining the break?

playing for the rush on partner to rover after coming out of 3b, missapproaches the hoop and has to make sure of it. will be a straight rover peel again

peelees placed a yard infrontof rover and is in "control" down at 4b

just while im here id like to apologise for any spelling/grammatical errors i have and will made through the course of this commentary, Im not an english student and my main priority is to get the news out to the people as quickly as possible

everything looks okay over at rover

good sideball, and is 10 inches away from partner

rushes to less than a foot infront, is lining it up fairly casually, signalling the ease of conditions

peel is comfortably through and just needs an okay rush to the peg to retain the vic open championships

yet again 1.5 yards away although pegging out from west not east this time... talk about dramatic

rob's won...

cool.

bye