ALEX Jacobs has become Wiltshire’s latest winner of a national championship outdoor bowls title.

The Box player clinched the Over 55s singles crown on Sunday afternoon at the 2014 English National Championships at Bowls England Headquarters at Royal Leamington Spa with a 21-9 victory over Gloucestershire’s Sue Latham.

Jacobs, 58, from Chapel Plaister, was in blistering form all weekend.

“I was very pleased to win the senior singles title,” she said. “My form was good throughout and I played well in all my games.

“The best I suppose was in the hurricane conditions, with chairs being blown all over the place, in the semi-final against Sue Davies (Broadway, Worcestershire).

“That was a hard game and I had to come from 13-6 down to eventually win 21-19.”

She added: “This is my first national outdoor title after going close a few times before at Leamington in different competitions.”

Jacobs enjoyed four comfortable victories last weekend on the way to the O55s singles title and only one player managed to get into double figures against her.

In the last 32 Jacobs thumped Derbyshire’s Elaine Haddon-Holmes (Junction Ladies, Langwith) 21-4 and followed that up with a second round 21-9 success over Kent’s Marion Johnson (Sidcup).

In her charge to the title in the quarter-finals Jacobs demolished Durham’s Ann Anderson white washing the unfortunate Darlington Woodland player 21-0.

However, in the very blustery conditions in the semi-final it was a completely different tale with Jacobs having to dig extremely deep against England international Sue Davies from Broadway, Worcestershire.

She trailed 13-6 but fought back to cut the deficit to 16-12 and then 18-16 before going in front and clinching a hard fought 21-19 victory and a place in the final which she comfortably won 21-8.

Previously at the national championships at Leamington Jacobs had finished as a runner-up with her mum Judy Selbie in the Mother and Daughter competition in 1999, and was a losing semi-finalist in 2009 in the two wood national singles and in the 2013 national pairs with her usual partner Sue Cooke.

Jacobs, however, is not the first Box player to win the Over 55 singles crown as Janet Hardie took the senior singles title in 2007 while Wiltshire’s Wendy Anderson (Stratton Churchway), a beaten finalist in 2004 won it the following year when a member of Rodbourne Cheney.

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