TAUNTON bowls star, Robert Paxton is through to his fourth World Indoor Singles quarter-final in succession, recovering from a set down to beat Stowmarket's Mark Royal on a thrilling tie-break at Potters Leisure Resort in Norfolk.

The eventual scoreline may have been tight at 6-7 12-5 2-0, but in reality Paxton controlled most of the match and but for a dropped three on the final end of the first set, the Exonia ace would have run out a comfortable winner.

With Royal performing a smash-and-grab raid on that final end, the pressure was on Paxton going into the second half of the match and it did not look good after four ends as he trailed 5-2.

But the world No.4, who failed to successfully defend either of his World Pairs titles last week, turned on the style after that, picking up a treble to level the scores and then he claimed seven shots across the next three ends to win the second set by a considerable margin.

Paxton took first blood in the tie-break and after sending the jack into the ditch, looked on course to wrap up the match after bowling in for shot. Royal had other ideas, though, and punched the air in delight as he delivered a superlative bowl to knock Paxton's effort off, but the Taunton man then bowled in with his last to clinch the match and set up a last-eight encounter against either Jamie Chestney or Connor Cinato.