World Champion vying for home title

30th May, Singapore: World champion, Remy Ong of Singapore will be vying for a home title after a superb performance in the first block of the men's Open Masters finals finishing third to leader, Adrian Ang of Malaysia. 2006 Singapore Open champion, Lee Yu-Wen had a cracking start with 259 to take the early lead but a lower game of 189 in the second saw the lead being taken over by Malaysia's two-time national champion, Adrian Ang.

Ang's 265 in the second and 279 in the fifth game saw the 19-year-old youngster securing pole at the end of the block with 1846. UAE's Hussain Al-Suwaidi did well to finish second, 93 pins behind the Malaysian on 1753.

Ong settled for third with 1728 with another Singaporean, Paiman Bin Dali in fourth with 1715. Early leader, Lee Yu-Wen took up seventh spot with 1683 just one pin behind defending champion, Mika Koivuniemi of Finland in sixth spot with 1684.   "The lanes are tougher than I thought and throughout the 8 games, I really didn't have any massive games," said the 2006 World Championship two gold medalist, Remy Ong. "I tried to catch up Adrian (Ang) but he was just awesome. "Hopefully I can make up more grounds tomorrow in the second block to narrow my gap with the leader. The field is quite close and everyone in the top 10 have an equal chance of making the stepladder.

Other Singaporeans in the finals were Jack Wong (10th-1668), Carl de Vries (21st-1578), Ong Qizong (24th-1544), Jason Yeong-Nathan (29th-1527), Eugene Low (30th-1526), David Wong (32nd-1524), Andrew Lee (33rd-1509), Sandrasageran (34th-1500), Rohezan Abd Manaf (39th-1477), Chiam Yew Beng (40th-1473) and Shaun Ng (42nd-1426).

The men will continue their second block at 9.00am on Saturday, May 31 where the top 6 would advance to the stepladder finals.     Photos by Terence Yaw for SBF.