Bridge pair heads for global champs

Eighty-six-year-old Johannesburg bridge player Roz Bernstein will head to Denmark in August to compete in the 47th World Bridge Teams Championships after finishing second in the African Zonal Bridge competition last month.

The African Zonal, held from 4 to 10 May, pitted Bernstein and her bridge partner, 70-year-old Sharon Lang, against Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, and Réunion online at the Links Bridge Club in Linksfield, Johannesburg. “We brought our laptops with us, and played online against the other African countries,” Lang says. “We were able to see our opposition because the website we used has camera access.”

Lang and Bernstein, who both teach bridge, won the Zonal qualifying round but lost in the final against Tunisia. “We came second, so we got a silver medal,” Lang says.

Bernstein, who works as a bookkeeper in the mornings, says competing in the Zonal was “quite hectic. We played from early Sunday morning to the next Saturday night. Three matches a day. We started at 11:00 and finished at 19:30 every day. It’s mentally taxing and strenuous. There will also be three matches every day during the championships.”

This will be Bernstein and Lang’s fifth championship as a pair. But their best result is “nothing to write home about”, says Lang.

The championships are taking place in Herning, a Danish city with a small-town feel boasting a good playing venue, restaurants, and easy access.

Before playing in the Zonals, Lang and Bernstein played in the South African Bridge Federation trials for the South African team back in February. There were four categories: Open; Women’s; Mixed; and Senior. The winning team in each section qualified to play in the African Zonals.

The South African open team, consisting of Jewish players Neville Eber; Alon Apteker; and Noah Apteker, also succeeded at the Zonals, and is heading to the championships.

Bernstein’s grandson lives in Copenhagen and is getting married in September, so she is going to be in Denmark for that celebration too.

Bernstein and Lang are hoping to qualify for the top eight in the championships to compete in the quarterfinals. The World Bridge Teams Championships is held in odd-numbered years, and consists of different trophies for different categories. Should Bernstein and Lang triumph in the women’s event, they will lift the Venice Cup, but they don’t rate their chances too highly. “Unfortunately, the standard of bridge in this country is not up to world standards,” Bernstein says.

Bernstein says the game has progressed massively since she learned to play in 1960. “It’s a scientific game today. The bidding system itself has developed enormously. The game requires an enormous amount of concentration. That’s where a lot of people fall down.”

The Zonal competitions have been highlights of Lang and Bernstein’s time as a pair. “Qualifying top and not managing to win the gold medal is disappointing,” says Lang, who started playing the game seriously in 2000 after working as a secondary school French teacher for 10 years.

“We were in a similar situation two years ago, when we went to Morocco, but we were happy to qualify because two countries get a place in the world championship from the African side.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Zonals have been played online.

Bernstein says the highlight of her bridge journey has been meeting the best players in the world and winning matches against good countries. “We beat Germany last year. We were excited, and then we were smashed in the next match,” she says.