It is Erica's first Open champs. She has three women's world champs under her belt, with a best finish of ninth in Ireland.
She hastens to add Egyptian women, with reputation for hitting the ball hard, tend not to compete in Open champs because of cultural expectations.
Gender aside, no quarter will be given at the pristine lawns of the Rotorua, Whakatane and Katikati clubs in the nine-day champs, and none will be taken.
"It's all tough and normally played under high pressure."
With nine years of competitive experience, Erica simply wants to make the muster.
"I have a 50/50 chance of qualifying. I don't see myself winning the tournament."
The top four singles players from each block of 10 will aim to make the cut from eight blocks.
"It's about skill, tactics and strength.
"Women can hit the ball as hard as guys," she says of a format of the ball-and-mallet game that parallels Twenty/20 cricket's origins to shorten and excite players and fans.
Throw in age, something that will always be a given to Tony, and life becomes easier in threading the ball through those hoops.
"I'm always learning," Erica says of a game she likens to chess.
She has a world ranking in the 70s and he in the mid-20s.
A lot more thought goes into the process, as it were, now that she's older.
"Sometimes you can simply beat people through tactics.
"Of course, you still have to hit balls and make the hoops."
As a leftie, Erica hastens to add, she doesn't profit in any way as left-armers in cricket or golf do.
"You just stand square and hit square, that's all."
It is Tony's third world Open, having competed at the 2006 one at his home club in Hawke's Bay and South Africa three years later.
"I qualified for the top 16 both times," he says but emphasises at the BOP event the field has jumped from 48 to 80.
"The game is growing in leaps and bounds, not just in New Zealand but overseas," says the Tukituki orchardist.
"I wish it [golf croquet] was around when I was a kid," he says of the format that found traction officially in the 1990s when the World Golf Croquet Federation was formed to seek other affiliates from outside the traditional association croquet.
It found stability in Egypt after the British army's exodus so locals took over clubs, including the sport of squash.
"They [Egyptians] developed it to more the style it is today," Tony explains.
Under the imperial regime, the game was of a garden-party variety but growing interest in Egypt saw modifications married with English rules.
He says in Egypt the game is confined to the nobility.
More young are playing golf croquet in New Zealand, something Tony noticed at the last year's nationals.
"There were about eight of them and they are getting tougher to play. I'm keeping them at bay but it's just a matter of time before they'll beat me."
The standing joke with Tony is: "Who was the first Kiwi to win a US Open title at Pinehurst?"
Tony, of course, who claimed the US Open singles association croquet title in October 1994, defeating the then world No3 and US top seed, John Taves, at the hallowed greens of the Pinehurst Resort and Country Club in North Carolina.
The Kiwi, who won every croquet national title in 1960 to become the country's youngest NZ Open champion, won the US Open crown to the tune of a Southern Confederate Civil War song - When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again - piped in from a nearby church on a Sunday.
The more famous victory at Pinehurst belongs to retired New Zealand professional golfer Michael Campbell who beat then world No1 Tiger Woods by two strokes to claim the PGA major.
The national Under-21 golf croquet champs finishes at Christchurch today and the top two qualifiers will gain automatic entry to the BOP world Open.
Te Mata club members and brothers Liam and Jez Reeves are competing in the U21s.
Mike Crashley, from Barry Memorial Club, in Gisborne, also comes into the region's croquet catchment.
So what's Tony's chances of winning the worlds next week?
"Anything is possible in sport until you go out," he says with a laugh.
