Unheralded qualifiers Jack Bird and Stuart Irwin caused another upset when they disposed of fancied title contenders Mervyn King and David Gourlay MBE in their quarter final match here at Potters Resort this afternoon.
After their first round win over multi decorated Katherine Rednall and Stewart Anderson, they once again stood their ground, showing great consistency to chalk up a 6-5, 10-3 victory over the highly successful English/Scottish partnership and grab a spot in tomorrow’s (Monday 11th January) semi-finals.
There wasn’t much to separate both pairs in the first set, with the English duo edging the verdict 6-5. They tightened their grip in the second and opened up a 5-0 - three end lead and still held the upper hand three ends later at 6-3 after six ends.
It looked as though King and Gourlay were on the brink of a late home charge when they held at potential treble that would have seen the scoreline tied at 6-6 but a brilliant conversion shot from Irwin yielded them a treble to virtually put the result beyond doubt.
They scored a single in the penultimate end to win the set 10-3 and a place in the semi-finals on Monday
38 year old builder Irwin said later “what a great result that was for Jack and myself. We both played and delivered the big results well and kept our focus. We’re looking forward to the semis now and hope to carry through our current form”.
“JUST” World Open Pairs 2021
Quarter Final
Jack Bird and Stuart Irwin beat Mervyn King and David Gourlay MBE 6-5, 10-3