American clinches first block lead
12th October, Taipei: Ex-PBA bowler, Purvis Granger clinched pole position in the Men's Open Masters first block finals of the 9th Chinese Taipei International Open after a keen tussle for the lead with Malaysia's Daniel Lim.
Purvis Granger, who laid off bowling for several months busy travelling around Asia to provide coaching to youths, took over the lead after the second game with just 4 pins but lost it briefly after Malaysia's Daniel Lim posted 278 in the third game.
The American fought back with a 264 in the fourth game to regain the lead at the halfway mark while the Malaysian suffered a 188 to trail by 47 pins. Granger hit a low game himself in the fifth but had his lead reduced to just 6 pins after the fifth.
Both Granger and Daniel were neck and neck and trading the lead and the final game of the 8-game block, Daniel had a 23 pin lead but it was the cool Granger clinched pole ending with a superb 267 in the eighth game that settled the outcome with 1814.
"I had trained hard the week before coming for this championship and it's not easy coming back to compete at such a hot pace," said Granger. "Daniel bowled well except for lanes 9 and 10 where everyone had trouble. I shot a 165 there too. I threw a lot of gutter balls especially having to bowl right on the outside.
The Singapore Open runner-up settled for second just 10 pins adrift on 1804 ahead of teammate, Zulmazran Zulkifli third a further 37 pins away. Fellow compatriot, Aaron Kong kept close with the leaders throughout to finish fourth with 1729 while the best Taiwanese finisher was Hsieh Fu-Tai taking fifth spot.
Singapore's best finisher was Eugene Low in 11th, just ahead of Gregory Gan by 5 pins in 12th with Jamie Liew, Benjamin Lim, Mark Wong and David Wong in the second half of the field of 41.
Detailed scores: Men's Open 1stBlk Finals | Photo Album.Photos by B.C. Cheah, MTBC.