English women win Whitehead Women’s Pairs
Winners of the Whitehead Women’s Pairs: Maggie Knottenbelt and Heather Dhondy
Heather Dhondy and Maggie Knottenbelt of England won the Whitehead Women’s Pairs on Wednesday with a big final session to narrowly win their first North American championship.
It was a big comeback after starting out 45.41% in the first qualifying session. “We barely just scraped in the qualifiers,” Knottenbelt said. Their 55.39% second session put them 22nd out of 28 qualifiers, with a carryover of 5.44 – three boards behind. With a 53.85% third session, they crawled up to 14th, leaving quite a bit of work to do in the last session. A 66.86% final lifted them over the finish line.
“We played really well this evening,” Dhondy said.
Runners-up in the Whitehead Women’s Pairs: Kristen Onsgard and Linda Perlman
They finished with 427.75 matchpoints, 1.06 ahead of Kristen Onsgard of Dallas TX and Linda Perlman of Milan MI. They too had a strong last session and had been fifth going into it, but 59.02% wasn’t enough.
The English women were enjoying the tournament and their time in the U.S.
“We’ve really loved it,” Knottenbelt said.
“We’ve been made to feel really welcome,” Dhondy added.