The final playoff game finished around 20:00 (under lights, of course) this evening. The world rankings were updated with the Block Stage results (including playoff games), and the qualifiers were sorted into ranked groups of 8: the block winners in Group 1, the block runners-up in Group 2, and so on. The Knock Out Stage Draw was then conducted publicly, per the Block Separation by Grade method. This finished around 22:00, hence the lateness of this posting.

Eight courts have been set with hoops in new holes, to a ball clearance as near as possible to 0.8mm, for the Knock Out. The other courts will remain at the more relaxed standard (ball clearance between 0.8 and 1.6mm).

Main KO

Top half: 8:30 starts

Robert Fletcher vs. Timothy Russell
Jose Alvarez-Sala vs. Greg Fletcher
Mohamed Nasr vs. Tamer Hatata
Aston Wade vs. Ben Rothman
Mohamed Karem vs. Jenny Clarke
David Maloof vs. Jose Riva
Sherif Abdelwahab vs. Euan Burridge
Andres Alvarez-Sala vs. Matthew Essick

Bottom half: be ready by 10:30

Ahmed Nasr vs. Stephen Morgan
Omar Fahmy vs. Thomas Balding
Edmund Fordyce vs. Angharrad Walters
Gary Phipps vs. Khaled Kamel
Reginald Bamford vs. Felix Webby
Brian Lozano vs. Yasser Sayed
Blake Fields vs. Stephen Mulliner
Ahab Abdelwahab vs. Ahmed Elmahdy

Plate

35 players signed up for the Plate. The block phase will have 4 blocks of 8 or 9 players each, playing single-game matches. We will play the blocks Wednesday and Thursday. The top 4 from each block will advance to the Plate KO, which will be best-of 3 throughout. As allowed in the WCF Sports Regulations, Appendix 8, ties will be broken without playoffs (i.e., the tiebreaks will be net points, then who beat whom). The final will be played Saturday.

If a player plays the block phase but does not wish to continue to the Plate KO, the next-highest ranked player from the same block will qualify.

All players in the Plate are asked to be ready to play by 9:00 Wednesday. Three of the blocks have an odd number of players, so three players will have to sit out the 9:00 round, but since these are single-game matches the wait shouldn't be too long.