With both of last year’s finalists absent, the singles event was shaping as an open contest with a host of competitors in the mix to take home the crown. 

However, many of those contenders suffered shock defeats in Friday’s sectional play, with Scott Bateup, Brett Pieper and Shane Garvey all failing to progress to Monday’s post-sectional rounds. 

Bateup suffered a four shot loss to Windang’s Dave Tyrrell, who took out Section 18. Pieper fell to Section 21 victor Andrew Mackie and Garvey was outduelled by Eric Haynes in a tight finish to Section 23.

Two-time champion Corey Wedlock, Aaron Teys and Dapto’s Matt Miles bucked the trend to safely progress to the elimination stages. 

One of the toughest sections of the day was Section 22, featuring 2018 semi-finalist Toby Peters and former champion John Green. After losing his first match to Richard Sheather, Green returned to triumph over Peters to claim the section.  

Despite the string of upsets, Green is predicting a tough day on Monday. 

“It’s always nice to win a section,” Green said. “It was pretty hot out there, I played pretty well in the first game but was beaten. I thought I was gone, but just plugged away and came up trumps.  

“There are still plenty of big names about, Corey, Aaron Teys, Eric Haynes played brilliantly against Garvey. Anyone can beat anyone, you can’t underestimate anyone in this game.”