Ellis is coming to boil for Waterloo

Photo: -DARREN ROBINSON

GARY ELLIS: £1,300 pick-up.

BOWLS: 

GARY Ellis landed a major prize on Saturday night – then suffered near-miss heartbreak 24 hours later.

The Nimble Nook and Tonge star underlined his status as crown green bowling’s top player with a superb win in the Osprey Grange Classic in Stockport, beating. South Yorkshire’s Chris Kelly 21-8 in the quarter-final before coming through a 21-19 thriller against Staffordshire’s Glynn Storer in the semis.

That set up a final showdown against Birmingham’s Greg Smith, the pretender to Ellis’s crown. But it was the experienced Ellis who stamped his authority on the game, racing into a 17-1 lead with some precision bowls. Though Smith tried to fight back, Ellis cruised to a 21-6 success and £1,000 pay-out.

Ellis looked set to make it major title number five for the season in the following night’s Wharton Cons Classic in Cheshire. He reached the final with a 21-16 quarter-final verdict against Phil Davies and

21-20 return against another Warrington player, Carl Armitage.

The final against Shrewsbury’s Callum Wraight proved to be an absolute classic. Ellis led 16-4 in the first-to-31 match, but Wraight wouldn’t lie down - even when trailing 30-25. The Shropshire man scraped home 31-30. Ellis’s consolation was a £300 prize, taking his weekend winnings to £1,300.

Now he has sights on a sixth Waterloo Handicap title in Blackpool. The last 64 get underway on September 12, and the last 16 onwards will be televised on ITV4.