Bowls: Smith's success

GARY SMITH, from the Cyphers Club, Kent, reached the quarter-finals of the Midland Bank World Indoor Championships for the fifth successive year by beating Israel's Jeff Rabkin in straight sets in Preston last night.

Smith survived the loss of a maximum four in the first set to finish with a double for a 7-6 win, and again came through strongly with a double and single to take the second set 7-4. He led all the way in the next for a 7-3 success to set up a meeting with a former winner, John Price of Wales, tomorrow.

Ian Schuback recovered from the disappointment of his first-round defeat in the singles to join forces with his fellow-Australian, Cameron Curtis, and battle through to the semi-finals of the pairs yesterday.

The Australians staged a fine fightback when winning the last three sets of their match against Peter Bellis and Gary Lawson after the New Zealanders had taken the opening set 7-1 and then recovered from 6-0 down to snatch the second 7-6.

Curtis and Schuback, however, took the next three sets 7-0, 7-1, 7-2 to set up a semi-final meeting with England's Tony Allcock and David Bryant, six times the champions, on Friday night.