Second spot for Singapore youth girl

17th December, Penang: Asian Intercity Masters gld medalist, New Hui Fen impressed by taking up second spot in both the Youth Girl's Open and Ladies' Open Masters qualifying table of the 36th Penang Pesta International Open. Fresh from her success in the Asian Intercity Championship in Macau two weeks ago, New Hui Fen kept her fine form to knock down a 4-game qualifying score of 854 in only her first attempt in the Girl's Open Masters qualifying table.

The 15-year-old Singaporean youth also topped the Girl's Under-16 table with an even more impressive 885 and will be the hot favourite to take the title in the finals tomorrow morning. Krishna Darshini and Denise Chan finished second and third in the Under-16 table with 821 and 813.

Competing in the senior ranks for the first time, New did not disappoint her coaches when she amassed a total of 791. She remarked that she was not too happy with the scores and will try and better that after tomorrow's Under-16 finals.   Meanwhile, Singapore's Basil Low topped the Boy's Under-16 table with a superb 928 to lead Penang local youth, Muhammad Afiqwafiy in second with 865 and Christopher Hwang third with 845.

Hwang, 15 whose best showing in senior ranks was finishing as runnerup in the Men's Open Masters of the Indonesia Open. The Singapore youngster has also made the finals of the Youth Boy's Open category in tenth on a scoreline of 837.

Gregory Gan and Justin Lim Chia Loong also made the finals in 18th and 20th positions respectively while Basil Low will need to improve his 22nd position of 24 finalists if he was to make the cut.   Qualifying will end late tonight and the Masters finals will be staged over the next two days. The top 16 men and top 10 ladies at the end of the 10-game first block finals will advance to the round-robin finals and position round on Saturday to determine this year's champion.

  Photos by Terence Yaw in Penang.