Singapore youth denied maiden win
11th October, Taipei: Singapore youth, Gregory Gan was denied his maiden win when he finished first runner-up to Malaysia's Christyn Chew in the Youth Masters finals of the 9th Chinese Taipei International Open.
Top qualifier, Rodson Tong of Malaysia set the early pace with a 248 opening game with Benjamin Lim in second, just 4 pins away. With the 60 pins handicap added for the some of the girls competing against the boys, Christyn Chew of Malaysia, took over the lead after the second game.
A superb 257 in the third saw Singapore's Gregory Gan surging to the lead with just 10 pins ahead of Christyn in second with Geraldine Ng and Fatin Syazliana homing in onto the leaders. Johnathan Chan's 280 moved the Malaysian youngster to the front at the halfway mark but only just 2 pins ahead of Gregory.
Christyn then step up her tempo to fire 258 and 279 to surge ahead of the pack with 31 pins margin and despite a 196 in the seventh game, the 19-year-old knocked down 225, 259 and 215 to seal her first international title with 2330.
Gregory settled for second with 2308 with local favourite, Ernie Cheng Hsing-Chao and Jin Lau tieing for third spot with 2204. Benjamin Lim and Geralding Ng ended up in fifth and seventh while Johnathan took sixth position.
Other Singapore youths in the finals were Bernice Lim (12th-1977), Teo Li Ying (13th-1956), Theodor Tan (14th-1953), Nicole Wong (17th-1900), Jamie Liew (18th-1897) and Jolin Wu (19th-1865).
Meanwhile, Sun Yun-Pao captured the Senior Masters title after The Taiwanese amassed a total of 1633 over 8-games from Wang Ching-Ming in second with 1619 and Singapore's Jack Wong third with 1609.
Detailed scores: Youth Masters Finals | Senior Masters Finals | Photo Album.Photos by B.C. Cheah, MTBC.