Last quarter final of the day was Lincoln Qualifier and ex-top 16 player, Simon Skelton up against World No 5, Darren Burnett, former World Indoor Champion. Skelton had fought his way through the tough qualifying rounds at Lincoln Indoor Bowls Centre earlier in the PBA season to get to this event.
The first set was a very low scoring set, both players just getting away with mostly counts of singles and at four ends it was 2,2 with Burnett taking a single from Skelton on end five to go one ahead. It was Skelton that them managed to string some ends together as he took the next three ends with the only double of the set and two singles to go 6,3 up going into the last end of the match. It was then that Skelton had a bad end and Burnett took full advantage with a triple count to level the set at 6,6.
Second set and it was Skelton that got it together a little better than Burnett, although to be fair, there were several ends where Burnett just did not get a ‘fair rub’ on the bowls as several times his bowl came in for shot but just fell back, or, a slight touch on the jack which promptly sent it to Skelton’s bowl. One has to say that ‘lady luck’ was most definitely not sitting on Burnett’s shoulder in this set. Six ends in and it was 5,1 to Skelton, Burnett took ends seven and eight with two doubles to level the set at 5,5. Into the final end and Skelton put his first bowl right on the jack, Burnett fired and took it off but Skelton placed in another shot bowl and Burnett could not turn this one around and it was 6,5 to Skelton and a place in the semi finals