A poor start for Singapore

23rd August, Bangkok: Singapore had a poor start to their World Men's Championship 2008 campaign when the stronger pair of Remy Ong and Lee Yu-Wen managing only 66th position while Jason Yeong-Nathan and Shaun Ng finished 55th position. Singapore started their world championship campaign with the first pair of Jason Yeong-Nathan and Shaun Ng playing in Squad 2 of the Doubles event. Nathan posted 1206 with his teammate, Ng scoring a much better 6-game score of 1274.

But the pair's 2480 put them in 10th position where USA's Patrick Allen and Rhino Page shot 2857 to overtake squad 1 leader, Korea for the lead. Nathan and Ng ended up in 15th position after two squads.

While Finland topped the third squad to move to second overall, the fourth squad made no changes to the top 4 positions. The second pair of Remy Ong and Lee Yu-Wen fared worst than the first pair in this squad when they only managed 11th position.   In the final and fifth squad, Sweden and Norway finished first and second to advance into the semi-finals knocking out Mexico and forst squad leader, Korea out of the top 4.

Meanwhile, topseed, Patrick Allen and Rhino Page gave USA their first gold medal of the championship after they narrowly defeated challenger, Sweden, 457-452 in the title match.

The Americans cruised into the finals with a victory over fourth-seed, Norway, 453-399 in the semi-final match while Sweden's Tomas Leandersson and Martin Larsen edged Finland, 467-463 in the other semi. Norway and Finland took a bronze medal each as losing semi-finalists.   The bowlers resume competition with the first block of 3 games on long oil condition in the Trios event, which is divided into three squads on Sunday. The second block will be contested on Monday with the top 4 finishers advancing into the knockout stage.

Detailed scores: Doubles Semi & Finals | Doubles Combined. Photos by Terence Yaw.