Impressive showing by Taipei women

Impressive showing by Taipei women

29th May, Singapore: Taipei women made an impressive showing on the final day of qualifying in the 41st Singapore International Open with five of them making the finals and Hsieh Chia-Li taking over the lead.  The lead of the overseas pool in the Women's Open Masters has been held by Malaysian, Zandra Aziela since Day 2 but on the final day of qualifying and pressure mounting, Hsieh Chia-Li put in a superb performance to snatch the lead with a total of 932 with lines of 225, 245, 246 and 216.

At the same time, four of Hsieh's fellow compatriot, Hung Shu-Chun and Wang Ting-Wen making the finals in seventh and tenth while Hsiao Su-Ling and Wang Yu-Ling also qualified fourth and seventh in the mixed pool.

The five Taiwanese will surely give their opponents a run for their money in the race for the women's crown especially Hung Shu-Chun, who won the women's crown in 2005. There were no significant changes in the women's local pool with Cherie Tan still in front with 935.

The cut off for the women stood at 812 held by Filipina Kim Lao. Missing from the field is Indonesia's Putty Armein, who only arrive yesterday. Putty is seventh in the reserves pool.No big movers was also seen in the Men's Open division. Qatar has four in the finals with Abdulla Al-Qattan at the top of the leaderboard followed by Saeed Al-Hajri in fourth, perfect gamer, Mansour Al-Awami in fifth and Bandar Al-Shafi 13th.

Malaysia is also well represented with eight in the finals. World Ranking Masters runnerup, Zulmazran Zulkifli finished second to lead teammates, Adrian Ang third, Alex Liew sixth, Daniel Lim seventh, Zaid Izlan ninth and Mohd Noer Said tenth.

Singapore's challenge is headed by Eugene Low, Shaun Ng and Jack Wong as the top three in the local pool. World champion, Remy Ong will be attempting to break the jinx by capturing the Singapore Open title on home turf.

The final squad will be 11.00pm this evening and is already running an hour late. Bowlers who failed to make the cut could have a last chance by bowling in the Desperado Squad expected to start at 1.00am tomorrow.

Photos by Terence Yaw for SBF.