Spithill and Baird lead semi-finals at ISAF Match Racing World championship in Calpe, Alicante.

Two matches and two wins, that’s the score at the end of the day’s racing yesterday for Spithill, who is racing against Richard, and for Baird, against Cian. The best of five of each pair will go through to the final today.

Perfect conditions with 15-20 kts of breeze made possible to do the eight remaining flights plus two matches of the semi-finals. Spithill, Cain, Baird and Richard passed to the semi-finals. Spithill, who was first of the round robin, with the same number of points as Cian, 8, chose to race against Richard, fourth with 7 points. Cian had to face Baird.

At the first match Spithill beat Richard and Baird beat Cian. The next match was a repetition of the first one. The best of five will be decided tomorrow, as the Committee decided to stop at 2000. The first match was raced with 12 kts, while at the second one the wind had gone up to 20 with squalls of 25.

In the first match of the day’s first flight Hansen beat Col to add a point at his list. Nevertheless this point would be the last one for the Swede, who couldn’t’t be at the semifinal. Col, who started the day second, couldn’t’t add a point and finished the Championship with 5 points. Ed Baird, defender of the title, seems to have emerged from a rull beginning and has added four victories of the 7 he finished the round robin with. Williams closed the flight by getting a point against Richard.

At the next match Baird stroke again, this time by putting Hansen out of the game. Williams got the next point, against Col, and López-Vazquez fell against Richard. The Spanish finished his first Match Race World Championship with just one victory, against Spithill.

The next flight started with Presti, who only had two points from previous days, adding one more to his score. Then he started a winning strike that let him finishing the Championship with 5 points. His first victim was Lindberg. Next match took Cian to his second defeat, this time against Nevgodnikov at his last match of the week. Spithill added one more point against Hansen.

Gilmour, Spithill and Presti won Richard, Williams and Col respectively at the next flight.

So far, it was clear that Cian and Spithill would both race the semifinals, whilst there were three candidates to be the other two opponent: Richard, Williams and Baird.

Cian notched up a point by beating Sebastian . Then it was Richard’s turn to get another point on the board after handing a beating to Presti. The next math had two heavyweight racers face to face, number one Peter Gilmour, against so far World Champion, Ed Baird. It was Baird who got the point, leaving Gilmour ready to go back home with five victories overall.

Last flight it was decisive. Richard’s victory against Cian gave the young French the passport to the semifinals. Lindberg got his last point against Williams. Baird finished the round robin by beating Presti.