Irish women's pairs champions, Hilary Dowling-Long and Anne-Marie Horan, Dublin, advanced to the semi-finals of the women's pairs event at the European Open Bridge Championships in Menton yesterday.
A good opening session score of 59 per cent left them in 7th place, but a poor second set seemed to put them out of contention.
However they showed character in the third 28-board segment to score 56 per cent to come back and qualify in 26th place of the 34 pairs going through.
The leading 17 or 18 pairs at the end of the three-session semi-final will advance to the final to be joined by an as yet unknown number of exempted pairs from the later stages of the teams championship.
From an original entry of 106 pairs, 25 withdrew, including Ireland's Helen Carroll and Jill Kulchycky, due to unsatisfactory playing conditions. Competitors have been playing in sweltering heat without air-conditioning.
Patsy Meehan and Rose O'Farrell were next best of the Irish. They just failed to go through after a 59.5 per cent third session. Gillian and Noreen Pender, Brid Kemple and Cathy Bearèark, Bernie Lynch and Petra O'Neill also failed to make the cut.
Withdrawals from the open pairs saw the field cut from the original 408 to 337 pairs. Gay Keaveney and Pat Quinn were the best of the Irish but their 152nd place after three rounds was not good enough to qualify for the semi-final.
Greer McKenzie and Hastings Campbell, Sean O'Lubaigh and Paul Delaney, Brendan Martin and Teresa Hynes all finished down the field.
Tom Hanlon and Hugh McGann, John Carroll and Tommy Garvey as well as Adam Mesbur, who partners Melih Ozdil from Turkey, all were exempted through to the semi-final by virtue of their reaching the last eight in the teams championship.
In the seniors event, Ena and Aidan Cleary, and Anne and Alex Montwill failed to go through to the next stage.
At half way in the 48-board teams finals, Kalish leads Chemla, Figb Mosca leads Vriend and Fornaciari leads Adad in the open, women's and seniors' competitions respectively. The championships continue until Saturday.