Clean sweep by Malaysian youths
2nd June, Singapore: Malaysian youths completed a clean sweep of the Youth Open Masters titles of the 44th Singapore International Open with Aris Ardilla and Chong Jun Foo finishing one-two in the boy's division and Syaidatul Afifah, Faten Najihah, Fatin Azmira and Steffira Zeandea taking up the top four spots in the girl's division. 2010 Asian Youth gold medalist, Aris Ardilla set a cracking pace to take an early lead with his sizzling opening game of 253 but soon found himself trailing Aussie Sam Cooley after the second game.
Singapore's Jovi Ang made his bid by taking over the running after the third game but could not keep up the pace set by Aris after the Malaysian regained the lead at the halfway mark. Despite losing the lead briefly to team-mate, Chong Jun Foo after the fifth game, Aris went on to end the 8-game finals with 1709 to capture the title.
Chong made a late charge in his final game but finished 19 pins behind the champion with 1690 while Cooley took third spot with 1671, a further 19 pins away.
Singapore's Jonathan Ang stormed home to snatch fourth spot with 1609 to edge early pace-setter, Jovi into fifth position with 1597. Aris Ardilla won S$1,000 for his effort, Chong and Cooley taking home S$600.The Malaysian girls were much more superior than their boys counterpart sweeping the finals with the top four places. Syaidatul Afifah took a convincing victory to win her second international yout title after her triumph in Taiwan last year.
Syaidatul, who took over the lead after the third game, amassed a total of 1604, 49 pins ahead of Faten Najihah in second with 1555. Early pace-setter and pint-sized, Fatin Azmira settled for third with 1545 while Steffira Zeandea completed the top 4 for Malaysia with 1513.
Singapore's best finisher was Girl's Under-18 first runner-up, Tracy See in fifth position with 1485. Syaidatul, Faten and Fatin all won S$800, S$600 and S$300 respectively.
Photos by Terence Yaw in Singapore.