Sandy flying high for Scotland

By Jim Fowlie

Published:

WORLD NO1: Safuan Said.

ON TARGET: Scottish champion Sandy Wotherspoon has won all his opening matches.

PERFECT POISE: Gary Kelly, from Ireland, sends down a bowl.

GENTLE RELEASE: Nor Shafeequah Yahya, of Malaysia, in action.

LORD Provost Peter Stephen delivered the first bowl at Westburn Park to open the World Bowls 2008 Champion of Champions tournament.

In ideal bowling conditions, Scotland’s Sandy Wotherspoon got off to the best possible start with a win over Isle of Man’s Andrew Munro.

He then followed it up by defeating Wales, Portugal and China to lead the section as the only undefeated country and has yet to drop a set.

But the Port Glasgow-based British Isles champion has a hot handful today when he takes on The Netherlands and Australia.

Should he win, he will go a long way to qualifying as the top four in each section go through to the quarter-finals.

One of Sandy’s keenest threats could be World No1 Safuan Said, from Malaysia.

Along with Malaysia’s Nor Shafeequah Yahya and a trainer they came over a week early to get acclimatised.

“I like to play on fast greens but here they are very slow,” said Safuan who is a full-time bowler, sponsored by his government on a yearly contract.

“We are enjoying the hospitality at Kittybrewster as the people are extremely nice and we have been able to use their cooking facilities as we can’t eat all the food here, especially the meat, as we are Muslim.”

After Westburn Park, the 26-year- old is off to China for an Asian competition then to Hong Kong for the Classic.

Safuan is top of Section 2 after four good wins over New Zealand, Guernsey, America and Jersey.

His aim is to make the top four in his section and qualify for the quarter-finals.

He reckons his greatest threat will be Scotland, Australia, Fiji and Ireland.

Scotland’s Lorraine Malloy, of West Lothian, is still very much in contention after a solid start to her campaign.

She defeated Cook Islands and Israel but lost out to Philippines to keep on course for the qualifying rounds.