Hong Kong’s hopes of bringing back the World Cup title they won back in 2005 ended in tears on Monday April 15 when young bowler Ken Chan crashed out of the playoffs.
Earlier in the tournament, the lady representative Tammy Tham was not able to get through the group stage, winning only four games in the process.
Ken Chan
Chan finished third in the group stage, losing just three times in the 11 group games, including a defeat to the defending champion Jeremy Henry from Australia. The 27-year-old was drawn to meet Leonard Callus from Malta in the play-offs.
“Before the game I knew that Callus is very stable and can always maintain his calmness,” said Chan. “So I decided to try my best to have a go and even if I lost, this will be a good learning experience for me.”
The game was a very close affair and it is so tight that the first two sets were both tied. In the first set, Chan won a shot each in the last two ends to tie it at 6:6. The second set it was Callus’s turn to win the last end and tie it at 5:5.
“The last end of these two sets was very critical as Callus and I both wanted to take one more shot to kill the set,” according to Chan. “But, we both missed the opportunity, so we needed to settle the game with a cruel tie-breaker.”
In the tie-breaker, Callus displayed very high quality drawing in the first two ends and took one shot apiece to lead the set 2:0. In the third end, Chan trailed the jack and held two shots with his third shot. Callus again executed a superb delivery to draw a second shot.
Chan tried to rest on the second shot with the last bowl, but his bowl hit the other bowls in front, he lost the game and finished fifth in the tournament.
This is the first time that Chan played in the World Cup singles at the senior level.
“It is very different from the junior game when you can control the game if you can perform your usual standard,” he said. “At the senior level you need to use your experience to deal with different situations, especially during critical moments. You don’t see many lucky shots there.
“Winning or not does not really matter now because I learned a lot from the games I played.
“In Hong Kong you simply do not have too many chances to experience such high level technique.
“Keeping an eye on a higher level will keep me improving and I know I will come back stronger in the future,” concluded Chan.
Tammy Tham
Tham had a roller-coaster tournament, which saw many ups and downs, but in the end it went nowhere.
She started with two defeats in a row. First to Christine Grimes from Jersey in a game that saw Tham win the first set 17:0, but lose the second set and the tie-breaker. Then she met the defending champion Alison Merrien from Guernsey and lost in straight sets 9:8, 14:5.
She bounced back to win the following two games against Singapore and Ireland bowlers, but lost again to Canada and Philippines. The sequence of the last four games saw her beat Macao, lose to Australia, beat Japan and lose to Malta.
Tham finished seventh in the group of 11.
Looking at the results, Tham thinks that bowls is a funny game.
“There are times when you seem to be able to do nothing wrong and other times when nothing seems to go your way,” she said.
“From the first game, when I won the first set 17:0 and went on to lose the next set and the tie breaker, it seemed this year was not my year.”
She believes the turning point of her performance was on day three when she played against Canadian Kelly McKerihen, which she lost in the tie-breaker.
“Having already lost the first two games, I knew I had to beat the Canadian to have a hope of qualifying. Once I lost that game I had a real sense of anti-climax and disappointment.
“The standard of players in my group made it obvious that there would be some very hard and close games, and that is how it proved to be. Three of the four in my group ended up in the Semi-finals with only New Zealand coming through from the other group.”
Tham also admitted that this is a disappointing tournament for her.
“This is the first time I did not make the play offs.
“I do believe a Hong Kong player can reach the finals again one day, but there is an eminent need for a top coach to spend a significant amount of time with the Hong Kong team if we really want to challenge at the highest level.”
For herself, she will re-think her training program and try again.
Tham last made the play-offs in 2011, when she was defeated by Merrien.
Title winners
In the men’s competition, Jeremy Henry of Australia beat Tony Grantham of New Zealand in the Final on Wednesday afternoon (April 17) to win the gold medal: 10-5, 5-8, 5-0. This was Henry’s second consecutive World Cup title.
Jo Edwards of New Zealand won the title in the women’s competition by defeating Alison Merrien in the Final: 3-8, 8-3, 3-2. Edwards reclaimed the title from the defending champion as these two stars of lawn bowls continue their rivalry. Edwards added to her 2009, 2010 and 2011 World Cup titles – a record.
Check the full results at www.worldbowlsltd.co.uk.
Claudius Lam is an Officer with the Hong Kong Lawn Bowls Association.
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