FOUR former winners were in action in yesterday's first round of the

#140,000 Midland Bank World Indoor Bowls Championship in Preston with

two of them, Hugh Duff and John Price, surviving to the second round

while Terry Sullivan and David Bryant tumbled to defeat.

Duff and Sullivan clashed in what turned into an exciting five-set

encounter before Duff won through, but the major surprise was the defeat

of Bryant.

The three times former champion produced some of his vintage form

after losing the opening set 7-6 to Australia's Denis Katunarich,

hitting back to take the second set 7-2 and the next 7-6. ''But I

couldn't last the pace,'' said Bryant.

Katunarich took the fourth set 7-2 to force the decider in which he

dropped three shots on each of the first two ends after a tactical

error. ''I decided on a short jack but did not play it well and Denis

took full advantage,'' said Bryant.

Former Auchinleck man Hugh Duff, now resident in England and playing

under their colours in the international series, had to work hard for

his 4-7, 7-3, 7-0, 6-7, 7-3 win over 1985 champion Terry Sullivan, whose

Welsh international colleague John Price, the winner two years ago and a

beaten finalist last year, beat Belfast's Noel Graham 7-6, 7-5, 7-0.

Irvine's Jim Muir, omitted from the championship last year after an

administrative blunder, made up for lost time when he needed a total of

just 15 ends to send New Zealand's Gary Lawson tumbling to a 7-2, 7-1,

7-1 defeat.

East Lothian's Graham Robertson became the fourth Scot through to the

second round with a 7-3, 7-3, 7-2 win over New Zealand's Peter Belliss

last night.

Belliss, winner of the world outdoor title in 1984, stretched his

abysmal record in these championships with his fifth successive

first-round defeat.