Singapore women on course for a medal
23rd November, Guangzhou: Trios Gold and Singles Silver medalist, Shayna Ng of Singapore stayed on course to win another medal at the 16th Asian Games after finishing a creditable third in the Women's first block Masters finals on Tuesday. As usual the mighty Koreans set a blistering pace in the opening game of the Round-robin matchplay finals for a one-two lead. Triple gold medalist, Hwang Sun-Ok beat Choi Jin-A, 266-255 in the first match.
Shayna Ng, who won her first match against team-mate, Cherie Tan 244-233, won another match with 258 to take over the running when Hwang lost her second. But the Korean bounched back with two wins to regain the lead with Shayna trailing by 27 pins at the halfway mark.
Two poor games of 157 and 176 dropped Shayna down the field while Cherie picked up her pace to take up second when the two Koreans shared the lead after the fifth game.
Hwang pulled away from her team-mate to end the block in the lead with a scratch score of 1808, winning five and drawing one match for a grand total of 1863. Malaysia's Esther Cheah stormed home to snatch second with 1788.
Shayna recovered to win her last two matches to take up third spot with 1783 followed by Maki Nakano of Japan and Liza Del Rosario of the Philippines completing the top 5. Cherie, who shared second spot with Rosario, lost her last game with 167 to dropped down to tenth position with 1716.In the earlier Men's first block finals, Jason Yeong-Nathan could only win two out of the eight matches to end the block with a 1708 and in tenth position. Jason had a good start with 246 yet lost the opening match.
Thailand's Yannaphon Larpapharat sprang a surprise lead in a strong field to top the block with 1966 from seven wins. Singles gold medalist, Biboy Rivera of the Philippines took second spot with 1852 from five wins.
Favourites, Choi Bok-Eum except leading the first match, settled for third spot with 1838 also from five wins while Chinese spinner, Du Jianchao and the second Korean, Choi Kong-Kyu rounded up the top 3 with 1838 and 1830 respectively.
The men will return for their second block tomorrow while the women will take to the lanes for their first block at 1.30pm local time. The top 3 men and top 3 women at the end of the second block will advance to the stepladder finals.
Detailed scores: Women's Masters Block 1 | Men's Masters Block 1.
Photos by Terence Yaw in Guangzhou.