2024 Imagine Cruising World Indoor Bowls Championship โ Day Three Recap
Another World Bowls Tour top 16 pairing were ousted from the 2024 Imagine Cruising World Indoor Bowls Open Pairs Championships at Potters Resorts, Hopton-on-Sea, yesterday (Sunday), while the Open Singles got underway with a win for England’s David Bolt. WBT’s Anne Dunwoodie recaps the day’s action.
QUALIFIERS WALLACE AND JOHNSTONE ELIMINATE GILLETT AND WILLGRESS
Paul Wallace and Kenny Johnstone (pictured), who won their spot in the Imagine Cruising UK World Indoor Pairs at Potters via their win in the qualifying event at their home club, Cumbria, successfully negotiated a further step in their quest to lift the title – this time taking the scalp of WBT Top 16 ranked players Les Gillett and Wayne Willgress.
The Cumbrian duo started slowly, only scoring on two of the first six ends of the opening set which saw them trail 6-3.
However they turned on the style on the home straight, checking out with a treble and back to back doubles to win the set 10-6.
They counted five shots over four of the first five ends of the second set to lead 5-3, but Gillett and Willgress rolled in a double and two singles to take the lead at 7-5 playing the last.
Holding a single, skip Johnstone’s first bowl was slightly heavy, but he made no mistake with his second bowl, calmly adding that vital second shot to square the set at 7-7 which was good enough to see them win by one and a half sets to a half and book a quarter-final berth on Monday (8th January).
NEW PARTNERSHIP OF PAXTON AND WALKER OPEN WORLD PAIRS CAMPAIGN WITH STRAIGHT SETS VICTORY
Reigning Imagine Cruising World Indoor Bowls Singles Champion Jamie Walker returned to the Potters Bowls Arena, joining up with Rob Paxton – the 2015 Pairs holder who also won the 2020 Singles title, and formed a partnership for this season’s World Indoor Bowls Pairs Championship where they booked a place in the quarter finals (Monday 8th January) against qualifiers Paul Wallace and Kenny Johnstone.
As they took to the portable rink in their first round match against qualifiers Tom Warner and Perry Martin, they never missed a beat over the opening ends of both sets.
In the first set, they scored on five of the first six ends to take a 7-1 lead and went on to put the result out of reach with a single on the eighth end to take the set 8-3.
In the second they tightened their grip on the match and went 8-0 ahead after five ends, and although Warner and Martin scored on the next three ends, they didn’t score heavily enough to force their way back into the match and bowed out of the event as they lost the set 8-4.
FOSTER IN HUNT FOR RECORD EQUALLING SIXTH WORLD PAIRS TITLE ALONGSIDE NEW PARTNER JASON BANKS
Scotland’s Paul Foster MBE teamed up with countryman Jason Banks from the North of Scotland to form a new partnership in the World Indoor Pairs after his regular partner Alex Marshall MBE dropped out of the elite top 16 ranked players on the World Bowls Tour. The new double act got on like a house of fire in their opening match against the strong Australian qualifying pair of Chris Carruthers and Justin Wright.
Both from Western Australian, Chris, a 59 year old farmer from Shoalwater who plays bowls at the Safety Bay Club and Justin, a 53 year old Insurance Agent who hails from Lake Grace and is a member of the Willeton Club certainly made their mark on the opening ends of both sets.
In both sets they led 4-0 after two ends but the Scots stormed back over the course of both of them.
The first set was tied at 8-8 on the penultimate end but the Aussies fell foul with short bowls and missed out 9-8.
In the third end of the second set, a wonder, inch perfect bowl from Foster, who has won this World Pairs title on five previous occasions, gave the Scots a full house of four shots and on taking possession of the jack – Banks then made a tactical move, pulling the mat up the green, shortening the jack length drastically.
The Scots adapted to that length and rolled in two further counts of four shots and then added back to back doubles to put the result beyond doubt at 16-4.
“We just couldn’t catch that short length of jack” admitted Carruthers later, adding “until that point we’d been doing quite well”.
BOLT WINS THROUGH TO THE WORLD INDOOR SINGLES 32 PLAYER FIELD
England’s David Bolt won his Preliminary Round match as the Imagine Cruising UK sponsored event turned it’s attention to the World Singles, with the Hartlepool qualifier giving a great account of his talent against the only female competitor Giulia Gallo, a Senior Data Scientist at Microsoft from Long Beach, California.
The reigning USA Open Pairs champion, Gallo got off to a confident start but Bolt’s experience shone through and he chalked up a comfortable 12-3, 13-0 win to set up a first round clash against 2022 world singles champion Les Gillett at 9.30am on Thursday 11th January.
STEPNEY AND GREENSLADE TAKE LAST QUARTER FINAL BERTH
Last year’s beaten finalists Mike Stepney and Jason Greenslade came through a really tough match against 2016 runners-up Ronnie Duncan and Colin Walker to book a spot in the quarter finals this afternoon.
In an exceptionally high standard tussle, both sets were tied at 5-5 with two ends remaining but it was the Scottish/Guernsey partnership who prevailed to get over the finishing line. 8-7, 9-5.
In the first set, Duncan and Walker held a 7-5 penultimate end lead, and in a drama packed last end of the set decider Greenslade and Stepney held a double that would have been good enough for them to draw the set, but Greenslade added a third counter to a tightly packed head to snatch the set 8-7.
The second set was ultimately decided on the penultimate end. The Scots were holding a double, Greenslade played into the head, sprung the jack, and when the dust settled he had held a double and then added a further count with his last bowl to once again turn the screw and count an amazing treble that virtually sealed the result.
That result left the Scots requiring a full house to take the match to a shoot out, but that scenario never came to fruition leaving Stepney and Greenslade as the winners 9-5 and they will continue their campaign against Jason Banks and Paul Foster MBE.
Bumper crowds are again expected at Potters throughout the championships and World Bowls Tour are delighted to have Imagine Cruising back on board for their second year as the headline sponsor of the event.
Every match will be streamed live on the World Bowls Tourโs Facebook page and YouTube channel at no cost. Important: Please be mindful of fraudulent activity on social media, particularly during the World Indoor Championships. The streaming is available free-of-charge and you should not make any payment or share personal data with anyone promoting live streaming links. Please only watch the live coverage via the official sources.
From Monday 15th to Sunday, January 21, coverage will be available through BBC on BBC 2 and Red Button.
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