Bowls: Work put on hold as Fleming rolls into final against Sims

Taranaki bowler Cathy Fleming was forced to ask her insurance broker boss in New Plymouth for an extra day off work when she surprised herself at Henderson yesterday by making Wednesday's national singles final, against Manawatu's Sharon Sims.

"I'm supposed to be back at work by then," she said after she had won all three of her post-section matches yesterday.

"I hadn't given the final a thought. You don't really think about that sort of thing.

"The first thing is to qualify, and anything else after that is a bonus."

Not that Fleming, in her 19th year in the sport, would have been too presumptuous in counting on being in the finals, in either singles or pairs, judging by her past record, even if it has only been in the past couple of seasons that she has made an impact at national level.

Two years ago, when the women's nationals were held in Tauranga, she was in the semifinals and late in 2003 she won the national Superbowls title.

From the Paritutu women's club, adjacent to the famed but still separately run men's club, she also has four centre titles and has a background in netball, basketball and tennis.

And while Sims, winner of the national singles title in 2002 and of the pairs in 1993 and a three-time world champion who has long been one of the greats of New Zealand women's bowls, Fleming says she will not be too fazed in Wednesday's final.

"You have to respect a bowler like that, but we've played each other three or four times previously and I have beaten Sharon once, in a Superbowls tournament in Manawatu a few years back," Fleming said.

To make yesterday's semifinal, where she had a decisive 21-12 win over Southlander Sue Wilson, Fleming had to show considerable resilience in a last match against Tokoroa's Marina Khan, one of the daughters of the late, great Millie.

Fleming trailed 10-1 early, but then discovered her superb drawing touch and with Khan not scoring in the last eight ends recovered to win 21-16.

Sims, in her semifinal, was in irresistible form to crush Mata Frankum, from Waimate, 21-4.

But as had Fleming, Sims also had to make a nerve-racking escape in the final-eight round.

Sims was 18-11 down to Mt Maunganui's Raewyn Willis, but over the final few ends Willis seemed to succumb to the tension and dropped a four on the last end to lose 21-18.

Fightbacks were a feature of the women's singles matches yesterday, with Frankum, before being run over by Sims, coming from apparent defeat and a deficit of 14-4 to edge out Manurewa's Lynn Hunt, 21-20.

Internationals Marlene Castle and Wendy Jenson, generally seen as the favoured pair for the pairs title, for which post-section play starts today, both failed to make the last 16.

Willis upset Castle 21-18 and Wilson, from the Winton club, pipped Jenson 21-19 before ousting Browns Bays' Madeleine Holland, a consistent performer in singles in several recent nationals, in the quarter-finals, 21-18.

But against the steady Fleming, Wilson, a runner-up in a past national champion of champions singles, lost some of her rhythm and concentration.