KEY POINTS:
Though not without some wobbles, both New Zealand's male line-ups - the pair of Gary Lawson and Russell Meyer and the Richard Girvan-skipped triple - had satisfactory starts when the world bowls championships began yesterday in the sweltering Christchurch heat.
Lawson and Meyer won their first-round match 21-9 against Fiji's Ratish Lal and Arum Kumur, but had a much greater struggle, especially over the middle ends, than the margin in the score suggests.
Girvan's triple - made up of himself, Ali Forsyth and Andrew Todd - managed to survive a crisis, also over the middle stages, to beat a Thailand triple inspired by their skip Frank de Vries 20-14.
The women's Black Jacks were never under quite the same pressure.
Singles player Val Smith opened with a 21-11 win and the four of Jo Edwards, Sharon Sims, Jan Khan and Marina Khan beat Israel 31-6, following that up with another crushing, this time of Botswana.
Smith, though, in her second game on the Fendalton green just pipped Jersey's Karen Bisson 21-20.
Girvan's triple was always in command in the second-round match against Zimbabwe.
But Lawson and Meyer had another fright, having to recover from a 9-0 deficit to come back and beat Zimbabwe's Brian Ray and Roy Garden 19-14.
Lawson was not concerned that he and Meyer had been pushed, particularly against the Fiji pairing of Lal and Kumur.
"Ratish especially has been around a long time and in the sort of conditions we had it was never going to be easy."
Meyer especially found himself matched at lead by Kumur and it took some saving shots by Lawson, either on the draw or with weighted shots, to stem the Fijian challenge.
Girvan's triple was in even greater difficulty against a Thailand line-up, driven powerfully by an outstanding contribution from the 1.94m-tall skip de Vries, a Dutchman who has been a Thai resident for 10 years.
De Vries has visited and competed in New Zealand previously, including for the world champion of champion singles played a few years ago, also played in Christchurch.
"He's no mug, thats for sure," said rival skip Girvan.
"He's going to take a few more scalps during these championships."
However, that definitely won't be in the singles, as might have been expected.
De Vries' next involvement in the tournament will be in the fours.
The New Zealand triple only took the lead on the 13th end when it picked up five shots.
Patience, said Girvan, had been the key to the eventual win.
"We knew it was a matter of time before the opportunity came and we made sure we took advantage of it," he said.
Temperatures soared into the high 30s and, with a blustery north-westerly wind, conditions were never easy, especially for overseas bowlers trying to adapt to the ultra-slick greens.
That may have been a factor in one early major upset when Ireland's Jim Baker, a former world champion, and Martin McHugh were walloped by Namibia's Sandy Joubert and Graham Snyman 30-5.
And, after overwhelming Thailand's Michael Liu and Thira Maithati 47-2, Australians Aaron Sherriff and Nathan Rice were themselves upset 15-13.
