Staff Reporter
Windhoek-The annual National Closed Singles Bowls tourney was held at Windhoek Country Club last weekend. The competition is open to all bowlers affiliated to the Namibia Bowling Association (NBA), irrespective of whether they are Namibian citizens or not.
The overall winners in the men’s and ladies’ sections are eligible to compete in the World Singles Champion of Champions tourney to be staged at the beginning of next month at St Johns Park Bowling Club in New South Wales, Australia.
The format of the competition is the best of two sets of nine ends each and a tiebreak of three ends, in the event of competitors winning one set each. And should the scores remain even after the three ends, a “sudden death” end is played to determine the winner.
This year’s entries were a little disappointing with only 15 men and 14 ladies entering the fray, but nonetheless, this did not mean the quality of the bowls was diminished.
The weekend delivered some excellent bowling and after the round robin sections, Kiewiet Rust and Cabous Olivier faced each other in the first semifinal, while Will Esterhuizen came up against Rudi Vaessler in the other semifinal.
After two tough matches, Esterhuizen and Olivier confronted each other in a closely contested final. The game went to a tiebreak and was only decided in Will’s favour with the very last bowl.
In the ladies section, Marietjie van den Bergh and Anjuleen Viljoen played in the first semifinal, with Marietjie victorious, while Sandra Mouton faced Huipie van Wyk in the other semifinal.
Huipie lost in the last end of the tiebreaker, which meant that it fell to Sandra to face Marietjie in the final. This final was as fiercely contested as the men’s final but, in the end, Marietjie proved why she came home with a gold medal from the African States Tourney held recently, where she won the national closed singles. Both Marietjie and Will are now eligible to play in Australia next year.
Olivier and Marietjie van den Bergh won the national closed singles last year but only Cabous will represent Namibia in October/November this year at St Johns Park Bowling Club near Sydney Australia. Marietjie is unable to travel while Cabous leaves for Australia within a fortnight’s time.