Bridge news

At the European Open Championships in Montecatini, the Open, Women and Senior teams are all under way writes Julian Pottage, Bridge Correspondent.

Qualifiers for the knockout stage of the Open teams include team Moran, which is effectively the Irish national team (Rory Boland, John Carroll, Tommy Garvey, Tom Hanlon, Hugh Mcgann, Mark Moran and Grainne Barton, non-playing captain).

Qualifiers for the knockout stage of the Seniors teams include the English and Welsh team Dhondy (Jeremy Dhondy, Richard Chamberlain, David Kendrick and Patrick Shields), who impressively topped the table in qualifying.

In the Women’s teams, the only team with home-based players, Desapali (Sally Brock, Pauline Cohen, Lizzie Godfrey and Debbie Sandford) finished tantalisingly two places away from qualifying for the knockout stage.