What a day it’s been in the 7th day of action at the @Imagine Cruising World Indoor Bowls Championships with Stowmarket’s Mark Royal becoming the third player in succession to take the scalp of a seeded player and move through to the 2nd round proper.
In the last match of the day, Royal hit a rich vein of form throughout the best of two sets of ends match, playing with continued accuracy through the one and a half hour match against number 11 seed, and six time winner of this title – Alex Marshall MBE.
Both players were at their brilliant best in the opening set and tied the scoreline three times before a single and double gave Royal the nod at 7-4.
In the second set, time and time again Royal managed to change the landscape of the head and denied Marshall every time he looked like taking count, and although the heads were tightly packed Marshall felt that he had a few slack ends and some unfortunate breaks in that cost him as Royal mopped up at 9-5.
Marshall said “On the penultimate end of the second set I connected with the jack and instead of running through to the ditch for a treble, the jack bounced off a back bowl and I only counted a single. Instead of needing a two on the last end it meant I needed a full house to go to a tie break, so I’m really disappointed – adding but Mark was totally brilliant”.
Match Result -
Mark Royal (Eng) bt Alex Marshall (Scot/11) 7-4, 9-5;