The Chinese pair of Jie Zhao and Zhong Fu took the lead in the Open Pairs midway through the fifth final session and held off a strong challenge by Americans Bobby Levin and Steve Weinstein to win the championship by less than half a percentage point.

hird place went to the holders, Italians Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes.

With two boards to go, the Chinese suffered a poor result for only 24% while Levin and Weinstein scored 62%. The final board was just the reverse, however, as the Americans scored only 26% in defense of a partscore while the Chinese defended the same contract, took one trick more to score 70%.

The winners enjoyed some good fortune near the end of the session. Twice, their opponents bid slams with no play - one slam missing two aces, the other off two cashing tricks. One of the boards was good for a 67% for the Chinese, the other 97%.

The French pair leading the event at the start of play on Saturday, Marc Bompis and Thierry de Sainte Marie, fared poorly and dropped to 14th.

In the IMP Pairs, the Tezcan Sen and Okay Gur of Turkey took a huge lead into the final session and relinquished almost none of it, winning by more than 29 IMPs ahead of the second-place pair, Bobby Richman and Zoltan Nagy of Australia. Third place wents to Irina and Alexander Ladyzhensky of Russia.