Bermuda's sole King Edward VII Gold Cup hopeful, Blythe Walker, will have his work cut out for him when round-robin action begins in Hamilton Harbour early next week.

Walker, who won the Gold Cup petite final in 2006, has been pitted against recently crowned Troia Portugal Match Race champion Sebastien Col of France, Australian Torvar Mirsky and match racing legend Dave Perry in Group Three.

Yet rather than be intimidated or awestruck by his more illustrious opponents, Walker intends to draw on his own match racing experience in the hope of surpassing his impressive Gold Cup run of two years' ago in which he finish third overall.

"There is never a thing such as an easy group. It's every man's opportunity on the day and if we are on top of our game and thinking clearly, then we will have just as good a chance of beating these guys as we have in the past," a cautiously optimistic Walker told The Royal Gazette.

The 40-year-old skipper is a big subscriber to match racing and over the years has performed admirably on some of the biggest stages the sport has on offer, such as the Olympics where he represented Bermuda in 1992.

Walker has retained the same crew (Adam Barboza, Somers Kempe and Carola Cooper) who he has sailed with during the past two Gold Cups. And it this continuity which he hopes will also help give him the cutting edge coming up against some of the world's elite.

He is also pinning his hopes on aggressiveness at the start line and the slight advantage of being more familiar with the International One Design (IOD) than his overseas rivals who will have to quickly adapt from the SM-40s to the sloop.

"In match racing the starts are critical. We just have to play the game and win the starts and the race and keep our heads outside of the boat because handling should be second nature. We have to keep our heads up the course for the next wind shift to see where is the fastest way around the track," Walker added.

"We have already proven that we can compete at this level and when it comes down to it we do have the experience sailing in these boats more often and so we have to take advantage of that fairly early. These boats (IODs) tend to turn slower with their stern swing but after that it is pretty much a level playing field.

"I think we have also proven that we do have the abilty to come from behind and Hamilton Harbour is great for that because there are so many unknowns out there that if you can play the shifts right you can get yourself back in the game. But you can never count yourself out and if you are ahead you can never count the guy behind you out as well.

"But we know our way around the course, where we are fast and also have good boat handling skills. We just have to get our head in the game fairly quickly because if you don't get through round one, you're out. You have to get your game on very quickly."

Meanwhile, defending Gold Cup champion Mathieu Richard and defending ISAF Match Race Tour champion Ian Williams have been kept apart in the group stages of this year's event.

World number one match race skipper Richard has been placed in Group One with countryman Damien Iehl and three-time Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie while Englishman Williams has been placed in Group Two with last year's Gold Cup runner-up Bjorn Hansen of Sweden.

Richard defeated Iehl in Portugal last week on the way to clinching the petite final after losing to Sweden's Magnus Holmberg in the semis. Williams currently leads Col by a mere four points with two races remaining on this year's ISAF World Match Race Tour points standings while Richard sits in third.

Frenchman Col defeat Holmberg 2-0 en route to capturing the $30,000 winner's purse in Portugal last week and it's a certainty he will look to pick up where he left off in Bermuda next week when Royal Bermuda Yacht Club (RBYC) host the 101st edition of the prestigious Gold Cup.