Singapore lefty tops Day 3
14th December, Doha: Bahrain Open champion, Remy Ong took advantage of the favourable conditions for left-handers to win the high series award and topped Day 3 qualifying rounds of the 9th Qatar International Open on Monday evening. After capturing this year's Bahrain Open Masters title, the 31-year-old Remy Ong has had several good runs where he finished fourth in the Kaohsiung World Games singles, fifth at the PBAP Classic and second runnerup in the 2nd Anocl Open in Indonesia.
Ong narrowly missed the championship stage after he lost to Dominic Barrett of England, 439-466 in the Stage 5 semifinals of last year's 8th Qatar Open. Ong's first success in the European tour was winning the 2008 San Marino Open.
The team of 4 Singapore national bowlers had to return to the airport to claim their bowling ball bags when they went missing on arrival Monday morning.
But the setback did not deter Ong when he took to the lanes for the 9.00pm Squad 6. Ong started a cracking pace with a 264 opening game followed by 232 but dropped his pace with 188 at the halfway mark of hsi qualifying round.
Ong bounced back with 246 and 249 and despite suffering a low 170 in his final game, the left-hander totaled 1349 to end Day 3 as the top scorer and earning 200 Euro for his superb effort.
Paul Moor of England did well to finish second with 1336 while Ong's team-mate and newly-crowned Singapore National champion, Lee Yu-Wen impressed with 1298 to claim third spot in the same squad.
In the earlier squad, Germany's Patricia Luoto topped Squad 5 with 1314 with Paul Moor again settling for second with 1283. This year's Emir Cup champion, Patrick Healey of USA finished third with 1266.
Meanwhile, Asian Indoor Games triple gold medalist, Naif Oqab of UAE continued to lead the standings with 1394 posted in Squad 4 on Day 2. Naif's team-mate and Singapore Open champion, Shaker Al-Hassan, who topped Day 1 is second with 1353.
Remy Ong claimed third spot after winning Day 3's high series award with Paul Moor, Patricia Luoto and Qatar's Abdulla Haroon completing the top 6 who will advance directly into Stage 3 finals.
Two other Singaporeans, Jason Yeong-Nathan amassed 1211 in Squad 6 to take up 33rd in the overall standings as debutant, Lionel Lim could only knocked down 1090 for 71st position.
Mohammed Al-Zaidan of Kuwait headed positions 7 to 12 who would advance into Stage 3 finals automatically with 1300. Lee Yu-Wen of Singapore and another Kuwaiti, Khalid Al-Dubyyan finished eighth and ninth with 1298 and 1291 respectively.
Mansour Al-Awami of Qatar, who shot the tournament's first perfect game, occupied tenth spot with 1290 followed by ABF Tour TOC champion, Andrew Frawley of Australia and Denmark's Thomas Larsen making up the next top 6.
Photos by Terence Yaw in Doha.