It was Connor Cinato, or the Ginja Ninja, as he is nicknamed in the bowls world up against the Welsh Wizard, Jason Greenslade. Cinato had qualified for this event through the Co-op Funeralcare’s own wildcard competition that they had run country wide.
Cinato is no stranger to the WBT Circuit though having qualified before and he soon proved this with superb bowls against an equally superb Greenslade. It was young Cinato though that was coming out on top and by the 6th end of the first set he was 2,7 up against Greenslade. But Greenslade did not give up and matched Cinato and managed to take two singles leaving him needing a triple to draw the first set. It was a case of missing by a whisker though and Cinato took the first set 6,7.
Into the second set and you could clearly see the determination and concentration on both players faces as they both realised that they had to bowl to the best of their ability to win this match – it was Cinato that drew first blood taking two singles in the first two ends and then Greenslade taking the next two ends with a single on each to make the score 2 all on the 4th end. Greenslade took a double in end 5 but then Cinato opened the gap by taking 4 shots over the next three ends to go 4,6 up at the end of the 8th end. Greenslade needed a three to force a tie break but was denied by Cinato and only managed a single – the Ginja Ninja had done it again and was into the second round of the Coop Funeralcare Scottish International Open and he was clearly delighted on his win.