Three world champions - Jan Khan, Val Smith and Jo Edwards - are expected to dominate the women's singles when the New Zealand championships start in Dunedin today.
Jan Khan (45) won the world champion of champions triples title last month and a gold medal in the fours at World Bowls in 2000.
Val Smith (45) won the singles and pairs titles at World Bowls in Christchurch in 2008.
Jo Edwards (40) won the pairs title at World Bowls in 2004 and 2008.
Khan, the defending champion, is the only one of the three to have won a New Zealand championship singles title.
She has also won three fours titles.
Khan is the most experienced international of the three and has been competing internationally for the last decade.
She won a bronze medal in the triples at World Bowls in 2008 and has also won two bronze medals at Commonwealth Games.
Jan Khan was introduced to bowls by her mother, the great Millie Khan, who won four singles titles at the national championships.
Smith was the best-performed member of the New Zealand bowls teams at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and won a silver medal in the singles.
She won a New Zealand pairs title with Edwards in 2004 and was a member of the United team from Nelson that won the fours title last year.
Smith and Edwards are playing together in the pairs and will be the top contenders to win the title.
Edwards has returned to the sport after taking time out after the 2008 World Bowls.
Dunedin's Ken Walker (Fairfield) was runner-up in the singles last year and will be keen to take another step and regain the singles title he last won in 1987 when he beat Dunedin's Ross Brown.
Walker (62), the holder of 30 Bowls Dunedin titles, is a regular at the Westpac Indoor Bowls Stadium in Dunedin and this has rejuvenated his game.
Another contender is Gary Lawson (Eastbourne), who needs just one more title to beat the record of 10 national titles that he holds jointly with Nick Unkovich (Auckland).
Lawson and Dan Delany (Onehunga) are the defending pairs championsOther contenders for the men's singles title are Canadian international Ryan Bester (Cabramatta), Mike Kernaghan (Kaikorai), Ali Forsyth (Taren Point), Shaun Scott (North East Valley) and Shannon McIlroy (Stoke).
Bester (25) won a bronze medal in the singles at World Bowls in 2008 and a gold in the pairs in 2004.
Kernaghan has returned to serious bowls this year and should not be underestimated.
He won a bronze medal in the singles at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and won back to back New Zealand singles titles in 2001 and 2002.
Forsyth won the New Zealand singles title in 2003 and 2004 and has won a world champion of champions singles title.
The in-form Scott was runner-up in the singles in Dunedin in 2007 and reached the semifinals a year later.
