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Defending champ falls to Monty

15/09/2006

Colin Montgomerie has booked his place in the semi-finals of the World Match Play Championship at Wentworth with a valiant one-hole victory over defending champion Michael Campbell.

The misfiring Scot slipped to an instant deficit as his New Zealand opponent birdied the first before storming to four up by winning the fourth, fifth and sixth holes. But Montgomerie rallied and a superb back nine saw them head into the break all square.

The second 18 was closer but it was Montgomerie who dominated, taking a lead on the second and refusing to allow Campbell back into the ascendancy.

The tie went all the way to the last, but it was the 1999 champion Montgomerie who found a crucial birdie four to take a narrow win.

Up against him for a place in the final, and with it a shot at the £1 million prize, will be England's Paul Casey, who stormed to a quite brilliant 5&3 win over Canadian Mike Weir.

Their tie had been a close affair through the first half, with Weir edging ahead by the solitary hole on four separate occasions but failing to pull away.

Casey, as if biding his time, struck on the 20th hole as successive bogeys from the Canadian gifted him his first lead of the match.

He then doubled his advantage by birdying the 25th before surging to a three-hole lead with another picked-up shot on the 30th. Weir then capitulated, bogeying the 32nd and 33rd to slump unassailably to five down and out of the event.

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