Ireland knocked out of contest

World bridge championship: Ireland was knocked out of the world transnational bridge team championship in Shanghai late last night when John Carroll, Tommy Garvey, Nick FitzGibbon, Adam Mesbur and Tom Hanlon failed in their quarter-final match against the strong Zimmerman team.

The victors, who had previously beaten Ireland 16-14 during the qualifying stage, comprised players from France and Italy, including Italian former world champions Fantoni and Nunes.

At half-way, the Irish trailed by 24 points. However, they rallied in the second half of the 32-deal match to cut the deficit to 10.

The final score, 26-36, represented the lowest-scoring match of the quarter-finals, an indication of a keenly fought contest between two good sides.

Russia beat Zuomeicheng, China 77-39; Germany defeated Markowicz, USA and Poland 59-27; and Gordon, USA, overcame Burgay, Italy 61-56 in the closest game of the day.

Earlier in the day, the Irish had comfortably qualified for the knock-out phase of the competition by finishing third of the 148 competing teams in the Swiss rounds.

Captained by David Jackson, the team left the poor form of the first week behind them and proved they were world-class players.

The same team has qualified for the quarter finals in four international championships since 2003, as well as finishing runners-up in the European championships last year. No other Irish team has been so successful.

Paul Delaney, Seán Ó Lubaigh, Terry Walsh and Peter Goodman with Aoife MacHale as non-playing captain had a good tournament. Following a horrific 4-25 defeat in their first match on Monday, they showed character by gradually climbing up the leaderboard, eventually finishing a creditable 57th in the record-number field.

The Bermuda Bowl final between Norway and USA 2 is proving to be a close and tense contest, with the Norwegians leading 117-108 after 48 of the 128 deals.

In the women's event for the Venice Cup, the lead swung back and forth over the early deals until USA 1 asserted itself and built up an advantage of 31 points over Germany.

© 2007 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times