Defending fours champions Ryan Bester and Jo Babich both met their demise at the national open bowls championships in Auckland yesterday.
Bester somehow dropped two sevens to the four skipped by the accomplished Peter Belliss, his clubmate at Sydney's powerful Cabramatta club.
Belliss won only five of the
18 ends in a remarkable match won 22-19, also grabbing a five on another end which typified the danger of Bester's hard driving game.
Three-time champion Belliss advanced to the last 16, avoiding the pitfalls that befell several other title hopefuls.
A major upset in an eventful day was the downfall of Gary Lawson, although he was always going to have a tough encounter against the newly crowned pairs champion, Ray Ashton of Johnsonville.
Lawson led 9-6 after seven ends when Ashton made his move, scoring three threes and winning five consecutive ends to open up a commanding 17-9 margin.
Lawson clawed his way back to 16-18 but having to take gambles, dropped a five sink 23-16, having failed to add to his nine national titles at these championships.
Also lurking dangerously in the last 16 is Stoke's Gary Watson, but most of the remainder are all capable Auckland bowlers who know the local conditions.
As well as the demise of Babich's Auckland team at the hands of Mangere's Emma Waerehu 17-12, the likely women's quartet skipped by Northern's Sharon Sims also fell by the wayside against another Auckland composite combination from the Carlton-Cornwall and Pakuranga clubs.
Skipped by Karen Hema, they jumped out of the blocks against Sims, leading 15-33 after 10 ends.
From then it was a matter of grimly hanging on, something they did to win 16-14.
"The team [Maria Broadbent, Karen De Jong and Tania Wrigley] really settled in and found a beautiful weight, with each of them doing their jobs," Hema said about their dream start.
In fact, Sims' team had a great chance to gain the three shots required on the last end when Hema's crew played their worst end of the match but no one seemed able to get close to the jack and Hema survived to reach the quarter-finals.
Tawa's Dale Lang was again to the fore. She had two two impressive wins to march to the quarter-finals.
The beaten finalist in the pairs will be dangerous as the competition nears the final stages.
- NZPA
