Brit Ian Williams may not have won this year's King Edward VII Gold Cup but there was still a sense of accomplishment in the Team Pindar camp as Williams and crew did just enough and then relied on others to protect their slim lead atop the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) World Match Racing Tour points standings.

Williams and Team Pindar (92 points) finished fifth during the Gold Cup regatta Group and will enter this year's final world tour event in Malaysia with nearest rivals Sebastien Col (88 points) and Mathieu Richard (77 points) still trailing in his wake.

Lawyer Williams defeated last year's Gold Cup winner Richard during Saturday's consolation round-robin action and then got a helping hand from American Keith Swinton who remarkably beat Frenchman Col, a recent winner at the Troia Match Cup in Portugal.

The 31-year-old skipper won a maiden ISAF World Match Racing Tour title last year and is now within striking distance of successfully defending his crown barring catastrophe in Malaysia, where he is the defending champion, in December.

"The World Championship is out there for the taking, and we are all very driven individuals so it will be a tough event. All we know at this stage is one of us will be crowned world champion," Williams said.

Williams and his crew arrived in Bermuda confident of regaining the coveted Gold Cup following a successful campaign here in 2006.

Yet despite going 7-0 in the group stages, the Englishman stumbled against Sweden's Mattias Rahm in the quarter-finals before an overall fifth place finish somewhat cushioned the blow, and kept him course for a second straight world match race title.

"Of course we were disappointed to go out of this regatta as we felt comfortable and thought we had a good shot of going further," added Williams, a nominee for this year's ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award.

"But in the overall picture this (Gold Cup) is now effectively a null regatta with the way the discards go."

At the end of the 2008 ISAF World Match Racing Tour series each team will count their best five events plus the final stage, the Monsoon Cup in Malaysia worth 150 points.