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Lawn Bowls
Current world champion Val Smith could manage only two wins from four matches, at the national bowls championships in Wellington and has missed out on post-section play in the women's singles.
Smith was beaten by Lower Hutt's Wendy Mackie and Laird Park's Lorraine Mangin on a cut-throat day which also saw another favourite, Marina Khan, disappear from from contention when she suffered two losses after winning her first two games.
The most notable players to make the cut through to post-section include Beckenham's Jan Khan, Victoria's Leigh Griffin, Feona Sayles, defending champion Sue Wightman from the Hakaru Bowling Club and recent Hong Kong Classic singles champion Genevieve Baildon.
A group of young guns have won their way through to post-section in the form of New Zealand under-25 squad members Clare McCaul, Amy Brenton and Misty Arnold. Southern talent development squad's Abbey Dugdale also guaranteed her appearance with three wins and under-18 New Zealand representative Kirsten Griffin also went through with three wins.
In the men's pairs, a large core of favourites ran out with three solid wins to start their campaign for the national pairs title. These include the pairings of Shannon McIlroy and Dwayne Cameron, Andrew Kelly and Nick Buttar, Ryan Bester and Mike Carroll, Kevin B Robinson and Steve Posa, and Gary Lawson and Danny Delaney.
Defending champions Rob Ashton and Ray Boffa have also completed the clean sweep on day one, as did the Fairfield duo of Ken Walker and Andy McLean as well as the Blenheim pairing of Matt Gallop and Steven Gallop.
Other contenders included Peter Belliss and Justin Goodwin, Ali Forsyth and Richard Girvan, Sean O'Neill and Barrie Andrews, Terry Scott and Shayne Sincock, Jim Scott and Mark Watt, and under-20 Kittyhawks champion Sam Morton and Warrick Frederikson. All secured two wins out of three going into day two.
The surprise of the day in the men's pairs came fronm Blaketown's Lance Pascoe, who teamed up with Birkenhead's Dave Good only to lose three straight games and take an early exit.
The men's pairs qualifiers will be found at the conclusion of play on Tuesday.
