Ken Robinson (City Amat) and John Buttle (City Amat) reached the quarter-final of the men's pairs for the first time beating Fred and David Clayden (Nestl Rowntree) 24-16 in the York Open Bowls tournament.

Unfortunately in the quarter-final they had to face Ray Calpin and Eric Hodgson (Dringhouses), last year's beaten finalists, and lost 33-9.

The other three quarter-finals were all decided by just one shot.

Frank Turner and Eddie Howcroft (Haxby Rd) lost 18-17 to last year's winners Alf Lewis and Ken Harrison (Hull Rd). In the semi final Lewis and Harrison will play last year's finalists Calpin and Hodgson.

J Burgher and J Kelso (Newcastle) toppled Gordon Hill and Malcolm Farmery (Dunnington) 20-19, while the winners of two years ago, Arthur Dunbar (Railway Inst) and John Emmerson (Holgate), were beaten 19-18, by Ray Clark and Jack Armitage (Tockwith).

The ladies' pairs event saw the shock of the first round, when last year's winners Jill Clark and Margaret Moss (Tockwith) suffered an early exit.

They lost 23-19 to D Apps and A Smith (Stamford Bridge), 23-19, who produced a fine performance.

The second round games in the afternoon had no sooner got started when they had to be abandoned due to heavy rain making conditions under foot very dangerous.

These ties have now been rescheduled prompting a re-shuffle too of the expected semi-finals.

As with the ladies pairs, conditions for bowling in the mens' singles were not good.

However, a number of games managed to be completed.

Geoff Wright (Hull), winner of the tournament in 1999 and 2000, was beaten in the third round by this year's YABA president Ken Lippett (Shipton) 21-9.

Other fine performances included Arthur Dunbar's 21-4 win against his York Railway Institute club-mate Iain Boyle.

Unfortunately Dunbar then faced last year's champion Stuart Bryan (Dunnington) and came unstuck 21-11.

John Watson (Scarcroft) made good progress getting through to the fourth round where he will next meet K Lippett.

Steve Long (Clifton) produced a good display to oust previous winner Tex Stevens (Holgate) 21-18.

His next game against Gordon Storey (Retreat) was called off in the early stages owing to the green being waterlogged.

The heavy downpours forced the postponement of several third round games with tournament organisers hoping for a break in the weather to catch up.

Updated: 12:06 Friday, August 02, 2002