Opening day blues for duo
FOLLOWING Alison Merrien's success at the weekend, the weight of expectation fell on Guernsey's Daniel de la Mare and Lianna Bichard as they took to the green at Jersey's Grainville stadium yesterday on day one of the world under-25 championships.
FOLLOWING Alison Merrien's success at the weekend, the weight of expectation fell on Guernsey's Daniel de la Mare and Lianna Bichard as they took to the green at Jersey's Grainville stadium yesterday on day one of the world under-25 championships. Guernsey's talented teenagers are keen to follow in the footsteps of players like Merrien, Adrian Welch and Gary Pitschou, not to mention earlier heroes and heroines like Mike and Jenny Nicolle, Marie Smith and Fleur Bougourd.
But, although they certainly gave of their best in the opening round of the singles and mixed pairs, the champagne will have to be put on ice for the time being.
Paired with overseas stars they had not met until Tuesday, the Guernsey couple not only fell at the first hurdle in the mixed pairs, but lost their opening matches in the men's 'nd women's singles events.
The luck of the draw brought Daniel and Canada's Melissa Ranger, who won a silver medal in the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, together, but the scratch duo were comprehensively beaten in straight sets by Ireland's Catherine Beattie and top Scot Wayne Hogg.
Bichard, who was 19 last week, was thought to have a great chance in partnership with Jamie Hill, who qualified through the New Zealand PBA play-offs for a couple of World Bowls Tour ranking events last year.
Winning the first set against Scotland's Lynsey Nisbet and Welsh hope Andrew Hopkins, the Sarnian-Kiwi pairing looked set for a place in the quarter finals when they led 4-3 after six ends in the second set.
Their opponents hit back decisively, however, picking up a double, a single and a treble to win the set, only for Bichard and Hill to steal the initiative by winning the first end of the best-of-three-ends tiebreak.
Sadly, Bichard's hopes were dashed, and it was the opposition who clinched that quarter final place with two successive singles.
Bichard picked herself up admirably for her opening match in the women's singles round robin, where she faced a stiff test against England star Amy Monkhouse, who this year has already won the WBT world mixed pairs, two national singles titles and a gold medal in the world outdoor fours championship.
Holding her illustrious opponent for most of the match, Bichard was all square at 3-3 after five ends of the first set, before dropping two singles, and was 4-4 in the second set, before Monkhouse got home with a the first treble of the fascinating encounter.
Monkhouse certainly knew she had been in a tough match, and looked mighty relieved to return a slightly flattering 5-3, 7-4 scorecard.
If Bichard was expecting a tough time against Monkhouse, de la Mare could be forgiven if he thought he was the favourite to beat Edward Alderson from the Isle of Man, where crown green bowls is more popular than the flat green variety.
Although de la Mare, who is only 18, notched up a promising double on the first end, the Manx youngster, who is two years older, allowed him to score on only five of the 14 ends and recorded a convincing 8-4, 6-3 victory.
