Bermuda’s Yushae DeSilva-Andrade booked her place int the semi-finals of the Montreal World Boccia Cup, despite enduring mixed fortunes.

DeSilva-Andrade, who was ranked tenth in the world heading into the event, got off to a sensational start, thrashing Hiromi Endo, of Japan, 7-1, in what was an astute tactical performance, maximising her point scoring opportunities to win three of the four ends.

However, there was less success in her second match as she came out on the wrong end of a hard-fought tussle against world No 2 Dora Basic, of Croatia, who ultimately prevailed 4-3.

Despite the setback, the Bermudian still topped her group owing to point difference and as a result clinched an automatic spot in today’s semi-finals, where she will meet Malaysia’s Angeline Lawas.

Meanwhile, compatriot 
Omar Hayward endured a tougher tournament as he missed out on progression from his group having suffered back-to-back defeats.

The first saw him go down an emphatic 13-0 loss to world No 6 John Loung, of Hong Kong, who took full advantage of a number of simple errors to ease to victory.

His second match proved a much closer affair as it went down to a narrow 5-4 defeat to Greece’s Panagiotis Soulanis, who is ranked tenth in the world rankings.

Soulanis raced into a four-point lead in the first end, before Hayward showed great fight to win the next three rounds, only to ultimately fall one point short of claiming a draw.

Despite going down to successive defeats, coach Troy Farnsworth was full of praise for Hayward’s endeavours.

“He should be proud of the way he bounced back from first defeat,” said Farnsworth. “Unfortunately, he was only able to score one point an end and came up one point short, but it was a much improved match.

“To push the tenth best player in the world right to the wire demonstrates the potential Omar has and further international experience will hopefully take his game to next level.

“He also had a tough preparation after breaking his ankle in the lead up to this competition after being struck by a car and has shown great resilience just to get to this competition.”

The pair are among athletes from 28 countries who started out the competition attempting to seal qualification to the Para Pan American Games being held in Chile in November.