Teignmouth Tournament

The ‘Specsavers’ sponsored Open Triples started proceedings at the Teignmouth Tournament this
year with 40 teams fighting it out in the group stages for a place in the quarter-finals.
With just nine ends to sort it out, most matches in the group format were on a knife-edge and that was
the case in all four last-eight matches with four shots being the biggest margin of victory at the end of
the day.
Three of most highly fancied triples full of Devon and Cornwall Middleton Cup and international
players succumbed at this the knockout stage. Gareth Foster, Richard Bawden and Devon and
England players Ryan Whitlock, James Webber and Lee Haywood were all early exits on the second
day of the competition. Cornwall ‘s Middleton Cup bowler Lewis Thomas also bit the dust as the
competition began to get serious.
Plymouth North Down’s Zac Kidd and the Shaldon father and son pairing of Chris and Mike Parker
were the stars of the semi-final round.
They cruised to an 18-5 win over Joe Pope, Ray Bass and Selwyn Mizen from Yeovil as the team
from Dunheved, Launceston made their way into the final with an 18-15 victory over James Hampton,
Kenny Lenton and Jack Lenton.
The winners were the first-time Cornish entry of Craig Pett, Colin Fishleigh and Kieron Sargent who
took a seven on the 16 th end to lead the match against Kidd, Parker, and Parker .by eight shots. But the
Devon triple still got within a measure of forcing an extra end over the last two ends as the visitors
from Cornwall ran out winners to take the title by 20-19.

The ‘Tozers Solicitors’ Open Singles came up next. After the group stages, involving 54 bowlers, the semi-finalists lined up as John Pearce from Shaldon who played Zac Kidd from Plymouth North
Down and Lee Haywood from Shaldon who took on Ian Mellor from Skewen near Swansea.
The much-fancied Zac Kidd did oust his local opponent but only by a 21-19 score line whilst
Welshman Ian Mellor was making the most of his steady drawing bowls to lead Haywood by 15-5.
But it is always dangerous to be confident that you have a Haywood pinned on the ropes in any
competition and it was no surprise to most that the Shaldon man was able to stage a remarkable
recovery to win 21-18.
Haywood played the second half of the final in much the same vein as he pulled away in the closing
stages to win his fourth Open Teignmouth Singles title by 21-14.
The round-robin format also decided the latter stages of the ‘Comer Carpets’ Men’s’ Pairs with four
games of seven ends being the order of the day for a place in the knockout quarter-finals.
A total of 80 players started this one with Bitton Park bowlers Uli Previati and Terry Ash starring in
this round against fellow Bitton Park players Bucknall and Holsey when winning 14-nil.
Plymouth’s Stuart Evans and Ollie Lucas beat Brian Cann from Feniton and his partner Ian Veitch
from Brankscombe, Bournemouth 7-2 and it was the same score line for Shaldon’s Jordan
Kingshott who then left the competition at that point because his partner was having a baby!
Ryan Whitlock from Shaldon and his team mate Jack Lenton got past Bryan Coad and his
Stenalees-based father Norman by 6-3 and the winning pair soon progressed to the final
with a 10-4 semi-final win over Jordan’s father Rob Kingshott and his new substitute team-
mate.

The other semi-final saw Evans and Lucas progress to the final with an 11-4 win over Ash
and Previati and they then mirrored that score in the final when taking the 2022 title by
defeating Whitlock and Lenton.

? Ladies Pairs

Open Singles

Under 25s Singles

The Ladies Pairs, sponsored by Goodman’s Financial Planning, proved to be an entertaining
spectacle – due to the short game nature of the entire competition.
Seven ends were all anybody had to win this coveted title but it was still a comfortable hour
for both winning semi-finalists when Linda Sampson and Sara Quayle from Plymstock beat
Sue Pook and Carol Scutt from Bitton Park 10-4. Fellow Bitton Park players Moira Webber
and Tina Hall suffered a similar fate at the hands of Tina Sharpe and Pat Smith from
Chudleigh when they were beaten 9-3.
In the final, the game was close over the first five ends but the experience of the Plymstock
pairing proved to be too much of a hurdle for Chudleigh’s Sharpe and Smith as Plymstock
finished with a 2 and 3 to win the 2022 Ladies Pairs title by 8-2.
Meanwhile, in other competitions played during Teignmouth Tournament week, there were
problems for the Mixed Pairs competition which was due to open the event on the Sunday
but had to be postponed out of respect for the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
The Tournament Committee somehow managed to put together a new Mixed Pairs event
and an Under 25 Singles competition on the following weekend. The Mixed Pairs event
resulted in victory for Shaldon’s Lee Haywood and his partner Lauren Selway from
Caerphilly when they defeated Bill and Gill Grantham from Plymouth Sir Francis Drake by 7-
4.
And finally, to end a glorious week in Teignmouth, there was the Phoenix Singles and the
Under 25 singles events mentioned earlier
In the Phoenix Singles, a fun event run for all the non-qualifiers from the round robin stages
of the Open Singles, the 2022 title went to Terry Kellow from St Austell with a 7-3 win over
Ian MaClean from Totnes.
And there was a 21-19 win in the Tradewinds Restaurant sponsored Under 25 Singles, when
Jack Lenton defeated Yeovil’s Joe Pope to take the title.