Local favourite crowned world champion
7th May, Lake Wales: WBW World Bowler of the Year and local favourite, Diandra Asbaty was crowned World Raking Masters 2007 champion with a convincing victory over Zara Glover of England while Englishmen, Stuart Williams took the Men's title. | ||
Diandra, who opted to start the finals against challenger, Zara Glover of England on short oil, crusied to an easy 233-148 victory in the first match. Glover, who ran into tons of problems with splits in the first, fourth and ninth frames, was compounded with a miss in the sixth and 10th frames too.
In the second match, Diandra brought home a yet another clean game with a double in the third and fourth frames and four-in-a-row from frames sixth onwards for another impressive 235. The Englishwomen started off well with a double but another split in the third proved costly despite coming back strongly with four-in-a-row thereafter. Needing to strike home at the 10th frame, Glover left a stubborn 10-pin to go down to the American with 220 and a 0-2 lost. The runner-up had reached the finals after outclassing Aumi Guerro of Dominican Republic, 226,233 to 183,201 for a 2-0 win while the champion had to work hard stretching to 3 matches to earn her final spot after knocking out Alicia Marcano of Venezuela, 2-1. |
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The women's quarterfinals started off with a surprise victory from Marcano when she edged top-seed, Caroline Lagrange of Canada, 2-1. Diandra was equally impressive taking out Patricia Schwarz of Germany, 2-0 in the second semi.
Two Malaysians, Wendy Chai and Zandra Aziela failed to progress when Chai lost to Aumi Geurro, 1-2 despite narrowly loosing to Guerro, 221-226 in the third deciding game while Zandra lost to Glover, 0-2 in the fourth quarterfinal match. Diandra won US$10,00 as the newly-crowned champion with Glover settling for US$5,000. The loosing semifinalists took home US$3,000 each while positions fifth to ninth won US$1,000 each and the 10th-placed, Putty Armein won US$500. |
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The finals between Stuart Williams of England and Peter Ljung of Sweden was the closest-ever match on TV and certainly a match of the century. A costly single-pin miss by the Englishmen in the fifth frame of the first match allowed the Swede to take the match, 236-233 for a 1-0 lead to Ljung.
Williams came back with a vengence in the second to draw level at 1-1 edging his opponent, 235-224 this time it was the Swede that had an open frame in the fourth. And when Ljung had a split in the second frame of the deciding match, Williams knocked down five strikes-in-a-row and another five-in-a-row from frame eighth to cruise to an easy victory. Despite a turkey after the second-frame split, another split in the sixth frame proved disasterous but the Swede still gave his best by bringing in six strikes-in-a-row to go down 240-269. Stuart had to work harder to reach the finals earlier after being stretched to 3 games by Austria's Thomas Gross in the first semifinal match. Stuart's 186, 197 and 206 was enough to win 2-1 to the Austrian's 234, 151 and 204. Stuart also knocked out Davis O'Sullivan of USA 2-0 in the quarterfinals. Peter Ljung cruised to a 2-0 victory over two-handed Jason Belmonte of Australia in the quarterfinals before taking eliminating England's Paul Moor, 2-0 in the semifinals to set up the showdown with Stuart. Stuart bagged US$10,00 as the newly-crowned champion with Peter settling for US$5,000. The loosing semifinalists took home US$3,000 each while positions fifth to ninth won US$1,000 each and the 10th-placed, Mark Buffa of Canada won US$500. Detailed scores: Women's Finals | Men's Finals | Final Results Photo Album. |
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Photos courtesy of Bowlers Journal International. |