Three previous winners are back for another title tilt in the event, which got under way today at the Burnside Bowling Club and finishes on Sunday.
Seamus Curtin, 22, from Stokes Valley, who is a capped Blackjack with national titles to his credit, first played at the event in 2015 as a 15-year-old and was the winner in 2018, while Taylor Horn (Cambridge Central) won it in 2020, the year after he took out the national singles championship, and Anthony Ouellet (Bowls Tauranga South) won the tournament last year.
Two players travelling from the Cook Islands will also make up the field, a first for the tournament.
Emily Jim (Rakahanga Bowling Club), 22, represented the Cooks at the 2018 and 2022 Commonwealth Games, while Royden Aperau (Mangaia Bowling Club), 19, who also played in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, won the Cook Islands singles, pairs and triples championships.
They will be accompanied by the president of Cook Islands Bowls, Unakea Kauvai.
The field for the three-day tournament (Friday-Sunday) will be drawn into four sections, with each player having seven section games.
The top two players in each section are then placed in division 1, the next two in division 2, and so on for divisions 3 and 4.
Four games are set to be played on Friday and Saturday, while the semi-finals and finals of each division are to be decided on Sunday from 9am.
Some players to watch out for are Ashleigh Jeffcoat (Carlton Cornwall, Auckland), a current member of the wider Blackjack squad, Jonty Horwell (Kaikorai, Dunedin), Aiden Takarua (Port Chevalier, Auckland), Adam Baillie (Point Chevalier, Auckland), and Hamish Kelleher (Cobden).
There will also be a lot of interest in four Christchurch players - Jack Bonner (Barrington), 16, who was named Bowls Canterbury Young Player of the Year in 2021-22, Woolston Park’s Dylan Campbell, 19, Cashmere’s Braeden Casware, 19, and Callum Cox (Burnside), 16.
- The draws and results can be found here.
