World bridge team championships:South Africa caused one of the biggest upsets in the history of the game of bridge by beating the holders and warm favourites, Italy, in the quarter-finals of the world championships for the Bermuda Bowl in Shanghai yesterday.
In the first 16-deal segment of the day, the Italians halved the overnight deficit of 55 points. The South Africans pulled away again in the next set to lead by 38. In the final session Italy came back strongly and led by one point with seven deals remaining.
In the end it was a miscalculation by the world champions - a grand slam missing two top tricks - that gave victory to their opponents, 161 to 143.
Other Bermuda Bowl results: USA 1 202, Australia 121; Netherlands 253, Sweden 95; Norway 195, China 96.
England was defeated by China 218-128 in the women's event for the Venice Cup. The English matched their opponents until the last two sets when the Chinese pulled away to win easily.
Championship holders France had a narrow escape when overcoming the strong USA 2 side, 179-178. Germany, winner in 2001, beat Canada 224-193 after a close battle, while USA 1 met only token opposition from Egypt, winning 260-85.
In the seniors competition Canada, runaway winner of the round robin, was surprised by Brazil, losing 198-171, while Indonesia, USA 1 and USA 2 all went through with easy victories over Poland, France and Italy respectively.
Ireland started well in the transnational championship which got under way last night when John Carroll, Tommy Garvey, Nick FitzGibbon and Adam Mesbur scored 23 and 22 against Chinese teams in the first two rounds.
Paul Delaney, Seán Ó Lúbaigh, Terry Walsh and Peter Goodman found the opposition too good in the opening match, losing 4-25 to the American Mahaffey side. In round two they recovered to beat another American team 17-13.
A record 148 teams, more than half of them Chinese, are competing in the transnational event which is being run as a Swiss movement.
The leading two teams at the end of every round face each other in the next and so on down through the field. At the end of 15 rounds of 10-board matches, the leading eight teams will progress to knock-out contests.
The championships continue until Saturday next.