2023 World Bowls Champion of Champions - Day Two Round Up

The second day of action at the 2023 World Champion of Champions brought a mixed bag of results for Scotland’s Darren Gualtieri and Natalie McWilliams.

After tasting defeat in his opening group match yesterday, Darren was in inspired form on Wednesday to record two solid victories to boost his qualification hopes. In his first game of the day, he took on Argentina’s Raul Angel Pollet in a hard-fought contest. Both players shared the spoils in the opening two sets before Darren played some excellent bowls to win the deciding set 5-1.

Darren was able to back this up with yet another win in his second and final match of the day against Thomas Walti from Switzerland. Like his game earlier in the day, it was another close encounter with both players showcasing their skills. After losing the opening set, Darren showed true resilience to fight back and win the second and third sets to secure a crucial victory in Section 2 of the Men’s Singles.

In his two fixtures tomorrow, Darren will take on Norfolk Island and Israel before he faces Spain in his final group game on Friday. It currently looks like Darren will need to secure at least two wins from these three matches to finish in the top two qualifying spots for the quarter-finals.

Natalie McWilliams suffered a disappointing day in the Women’s Singles as she lost out in both her matches on day two. Both defeats were by the narrowest of margins and against strong opposition in Malaysia and Canada.

Against Malaysia in her first game Natalie yet again tied 1.5 sets each with Nurul Jamil Alyani and went into a one end tie break which she unfortunately lost out on.

Looking to bounce back in her next match, the Scot was up against Canada’s Jordan Kos. Despite a first set defeat, Natalie rallied to win the second set by a shot to take the game to a third set decider. Some great conversion shots were delivered by both players, but it was eventually the Canadian who came out on top by a single shot.

Section 2 in the Women’s Singles will reach it’s conclusion tomorrow with Natalie having three matches to complete against Philippines, Cyprus and Niue respectively. Natalie will require a hat-trick of victories and results to go in her favour from these remaining fixtures if she is to qualify for the knockout phase.

Keep up to date with all the scores and standings for the 2023 World Champion of Champions here: https://results.mc.worldbowls.com/event/55c6ac0b-56b0-48fb-bee3-31d096bf6c86

A full breakdown of Scotland’s scores from day two can be found below:

Session 1:

• Men’s Singles: Darren Gualtieri beat Argentina 2-1 (2-4, 4-3 & 5-1)
• Women’s Singles: Natalie McWilliams lost to Malaysia 1.5-2.5 (3-3, 6-2, 2-6, 0-1)

Session 2:

• Men’s Singles: Darren Gualtieri beat Switzerland 2-1 (3-6, 4-3 & 4-2)
• Women’s Singles: Natalie McWilliams lost to Canada 1-2 (2-7, 4-3 & 3-4)