De la Mare digs in to stay in tournament

DAN DE LA MARE kept alive his hopes of a semi-final spot at the world under-25 indoor championships with two wins out of two on day two. But it's not looking so good for his girlfriend and fellow islander, Lianna Bichard.

She seems virtually certain to miss out on a place in the knockout stages after losing to England's Sian Gordon and Ireland's Catherine McMillan yesterday.

De la Mare still needs to beat Malaysian Afrizel Shuhaimi and Scot Wayne Hogg to go through and if he can repeat yesterday's form he has every chance.

'I was happy with the way I played - better than yesterday,' he said moments after defeating Welsh hope Gavin Abrahams 7-4, 8-4 in the afternoon session at the Guernsey Bowls Stadium.

'It's going to be tight,' he said when drawn into a view of today's concluding group matches.

At least de la Mare is not new to the situation.

Twelve months ago in Jersey, he found himself in a similar pickle and having to beat Hogg to stay alive in the tournament.

Hogg won that one and is one of the favourites to win this week.

Yesterday, de la Mare opened with a fine straight-sets 11-3, 8-4 win over Ed Alderson from the Isle of Man, giving a fine display of draw bowling on the tricky rink six.

His game against Abrahams was predictably much tighter.

The first set went de la Mare's way 7-4 and he made a cracking start to the second with three shots on the opening end.

Abrahams hit back with his own treble on the next, but de la Mare then edged 7-3 ahead with two singles and a two.

The Welsh youngster rescued the sixth end with a fearsome firing shot to wrest the shot back, but his tactic of shortening the mat on the next backfired.

He got nowhere near the jack and already two down his attempt to bulldoze his way out of trouble again failed and de la Mare was home 8-4.

In contrast, Bichard lies bottom of her group with just today's two singles matches to come.

After losing 3-6, 4-9 to Gordon in the morning she went down 2-10, 6-7 to McMillan in the evening and has just one point to show for her efforts to date.