After surviving a second-round scare when up against Peter Bell (Awamoa) in which he won the sudden death tie-break 2-1, Kelly then progressed through pool play unscathed, notching up some impressive victories.
The one-sided victories appeared to following him throughout pool play, until he met Peter Everitt (St Clair) in the semifinal. He romped away with a 14-2 victory in the first set of nine ends, but in the second set he clung on to survive and book a place in the final with an 8-all draw, to avoid a sudden death playoff.
On the other side of the draw, Dunedin’s Andy McLean (North East Valley) was also tested. He survived a first-round scare against Kerri Rupene (Taieri), in which only the tie-break could separate the pair after a 6-all draw in the first set and an 8-all draw in the second. McLean eventually escaped an early exit with a 2-0 victory in the tie-break decider.
He then progressed unscathed through pool play until his quarterfinal game with Karl Mason (Taieri), which proved a topsy-turvy affair. McLean won the first set 9-4 before going down 10-3 in the second. He progressed with a 2-1 victory in the tie-break.
The final between Kelly (20 and McLean (37), back-to-back world pairs winning combination in 2015 and 2016, and both New Zealand PBA representatives in transtasman competition, proved a dream for local organisers. The first set had all the drama of a Shakespearean play.
McLean dominated the first five ends, jumping out to a 6-1 lead, but the Kelly found form with a vengeance.
A Scottish singles champion in 2015 and a world indoor singles champion last year, Kelly bagged all four shots on the sixth end, to close the game up, and took the game to McLean over the remaining three ends for an 8-7 first set victory.
McLean had no answer for Kelly in the second set. Kelly requiring just seven ends to win 10-1 and book his ticket to the national final in Hastings at the end of August.
"Hopefully, I can repeat the feat of 2015," Kelly said afterwards with an eye to the world final in Perth, Scotland in November.
"Andy obviously got off to quite a good start, but was a bit unfortunate with a loose end where I got a four, which won the first set and the game. I was quite a bit fortunate to get that break because Andy doesn’t give too many opportunities away."
The good natured banter and rivalry between the two continued long after the game, as Kelly accepted his pedigree from McLean, and shared time in the bar with his rival and international pairs partner afterwards.
The final held plenty of interest for train spotters, with both finalists in the Scottish Singles having the christian name Andrew, and Andrew being the patron saint of Scotland. Also it pitted a right handed player (Kelly) against a left handed player. The weekend’s competition began on Friday evening with the quick-fire three-bowl New Zealand Shanghai Singles, in which Oliver Mason (Forbury Park), displayed an impressive run of form, defeating the Fairfield pair Murray Wilson and Doug Thomas in the final played Saturday morning.
The Shanghai plate final evolved into an all-Taieri Club affair with Barry Milburn winning the race to score 31, defeating club mates Ken Walker and Mark Duncan.
Competition wraps up today with with the quarterfinals, semifinals and final of the New Zealand Ranking Singles, beginning at 8.30am this morning.
