FINALS:

MALAYSIANS RULE

The Malaysian ladies are feeling mighty proud of themselves Saturday evening, having completely dominated the quarter finals and now have four representatives in the semi's on Sunday.
Action opened with Wendy Chai (bottom, left) booking her semifinal place by taking out local hero Putty Armein of Indonesia, 234-222, on the TV pair, whilst on adjacent lanes Vanessa Fung of Hong Kong lost to Malaysia's Sarah Yap (top left), 165-182.
Next, newly inducted Hall of Famer Shalin Zulkifli (bottom, right) kept the Malaysian flag aloft with a 206-193 victory over Filipina Irene Benitez and the fourth semifinal place was booked for Malaysia with Esther Cheah (top, right) defeating Liza Del Rosario of the Philippines, 225-204.
The men's division saw some contrasting bowling as the opening match had Daniel Lim of Malaysia going out after a lowly 157 to Hong Kong's Wu Siu Hong, 157-213, whilst Malaysia scored well with Adrian Ang taking out Shaker Al Hassan of the United Arab Emirates, 226-177.
Ahmed Shaheen of Qatar struggled on the lanes, going down to Malaysia's Alex Liew, 258-163 and the last semifinal place went to Joonee Gatchalian of the Philippines, defeating local champion Ryan Lalisang of Indonesia, 238-224.
So, Gatchalian and Liew will open the action for the men in Sunday's semifinals, followed by Ang and Hong, but first the women take to the lanes with the Malaysians in-fighting for glory, Chai taking on Yap and Zulkifli against Cheah.

THE FINAL FINALS:

Well, look at the picture and you can see that the Malaysians did not get it all their own way. They did snitch the women's trophy, but both Malaysian men went out in the male semifinals and the finale was the Philippines against Hong Kong. The latter won through, enjoying a strikefest in both matches and is now the ABF Tour's number one man at the tender age of 20.

So Wendy Chai and Wu Siu Hong are the inaugural ABF Tour champions and thoroughly deserve all the plaudits. The both bowled extremely well through the four days of competition.

Now we all look forward to the 2005 ABF Tour season, commencing with a new stop in Qatar on February 27 and embracing eight stops in all, even bigger and better than 2004. The 2005 Tournament of Champions will be in January of next year, the venue yet to be confirmed. But that site will have a problem producing warmer hospitality and better organization than the Ancol Jaya Bowl, here in Jakarta.

Pic by Daniel Winardi.