Late triumphs put smile on Sarnians

FORTUNE eventually began to smile on Guernsey's bowlers in the WIBC world indoor championships in Belfast yesterday after a less than promising start to the day for Alison Merrien and Nicky Donaldson in the mixed pairs event. Merrien and Donaldson lost the first set 7-3 to Welsh hopes Lorna Phillips and Richard Morgan, but looked poised to square the match when they led 6-3 in the second set with three ends left to play.

Sadly, it was the Welsh pair, from Cynon Valley and Cardiff, who finished with three singles to tie the set, took the honours 7-3, 6-6 and duly clinched a place in today's quarter-finals.

More woe was in store for Donaldson, who returned to the green to launch the defence of his men's singles title - against the 2006 WBT world champion, Mervyn King, a self-employed pest-controller from Norfolk.

Although he did well to halve the first set 5-5, the Guernsey star was outplayed in the second set.

Incredibly, King scored the first 18 shots without reply with a damaging 3-2-2-1-3-3-4 sequence.

Things looked bleak for the Sarnians at that point and another unscheduled defeat appeared on the cards when in her singles group Merrien lost the first set 12-5 to the host country's champion, Catherine McMillen.

Merrien, however, is nothing if not a fighter and she showed her resilience by winning the second set 9-7 with a last-gasp treble and went on to win the tiebreak on a tense death-or-glory last end.

By this time, Gary Pitschou was in action on the next rink and he was in no mood to mess about, handing out a 9-2, 6-6 defeat to Richard Morgan - sweet revenge for the Welsh win over his Guernsey team-mates in the mixed pairs.

In the last session of the day, Donaldson, who had recovered his composure, chalked up a convincing 11-5, 12-5 win over Malaysian Salahuddin Razali, while King was surprisingly dethroned by Irish champion John Boyd.

Meanwhile, in the other world event down under, Alison's husband Ian Merrien was outplayed by Austr-alia's Commonwealth Games champion Kelvin Kerkow, who returned a 13-5, 10-6 scorecard at the Warilla club in New South Wales.

All is not lost for Merrien, who would not have expected to beat the Aussie and who needs to finish in the top four in his 10-man group to claim a place in the knockout stage.