Sidmouth’s annual golf croquet championship for the Haste Cup was played out over the weekend.

The tournament is a qualifier for the English National Singles Championship, the Ascot Cup, held later in the year.

The prestigious tournament attracted 16 top-class players from as far afield as Leicester and Sussex.

With handicaps ranging from -1 to 4, these players are well worth watching, for the variety of styles of play and for the speed and accuracy of their hits.

On Saturday the players played in two American Blocks. Matches against each player in the block gave all players seven games to play.

On Sunday, the top four players in each block took part in a play-off - quarter-finals in the morning and the semi-finals and final in the afternoon.

Jim Gregory (Nailsea) played Chris Roberts (Henley) and William Ormerod (Swanage) played Andrew Dymomd (Dulwich) on one court.

Roger Goldring (Henley) played Richard Brooks (Sussex) and Tom Weston (Dorset) played Tony Forbes (Cheltenham) on another court.

All matches were best of three games. Two of the matches finished after two games, the other two went to a third game.

Roberts beat Gregory (7-5, 7-3). Dymond beat Ormerod (7-4, 4-7, 7-3). Goldring beat Brooks (2-7, 7-2, 7-6) and Weston beat Forbes (7-3, 7-3).

The other eight players took part in an Egyptian tournament.

Most players played four or five games. After lunch, the losing quarter-finalists joined in. This continued in the afternoon while the semi-finals were being played.

In the semi-finals, Roberts played Dymond and Goldring played Weston. Roberts won in two games (7-2:7-4), but Weston needed three games to beat Brooks (6-7:6-5:4-2).

The final was between Chris Roberts (-1) and Tom Weston (1). Both are superb players – especially at clearing balls away from hoops.

Roberts beat Weston in two games (7-6:7-5) winning the Haste Cup for the second year running. He won 11 games out of the 13 he had played over the weekend, so was a worthy winner. Well done.

While the final was being played there was a match for third place between Dymond and Goldring, who won in two games (7-4:7-5).

The Haste Cup was presented to the winner by the croquet club chairman Peter Nelson. The runner-up received a bottle of wine.

Peter also presented a bottle of wine to the winner of the Egyptian tournament, Helena Jansson – the only lady in the tournament, and also to tournament manager Helen Pryor.