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 Victory in the ladies’ doubles event of the 18^th Asian Tenpin Bowling Championships came to the overnight leaders Wang -Ting and Pan Yu-Fen of Chinese Taipei, with a fine score of 4,900, but it was no easy ride over the final six games at the PS Bowl, Bangkapi on Thursday morning. Holding a 56-pin lead over Alice Tay and Jennifer Tan of Singapore going into the second day, the Taiwanese increased that buffer to just under one hundred, but changes came from the tenth of the twelve games as the leaders ran into trouble from determined challenges by Singapore, Korea and Australia to get into the three medal positions.

Once again, it all came down to the final balls of the tenth frame. Pan Yu-Fen was faced with having to make a spare for the gold medal. She got a strike, so that place was settled unless Anne-Maree Putney of Australia could strike out, but she didn’t, although she did score 277, so gold to Chinese Taipei and silver to Australia’s Putney and Emma Rutten with 4,890. The Singaporeans held on to take bronze on 4,817, giving Alice Tay her second medal after the gold in Ladies’ Singles.

The hard luck story is for the Korean’s, Gye Min-Young and Nam Bo-Ra, who were in the bronze medal position right up until the last game, but their 199 and 178 fell 20 pins short of third place with a creditable score of 4,797.

The Australian pair were jubilant at their success. Anne-Maree Putney, who played anchor, said, “It was absolutely excellent. We thought that we had won the bronze medal so are mighty pleased to have bagged the silver.”

Wang Ya-Ting, 19, and Pan Yu-Fen, 25, both from Taichung where they are university students, have been bowling for about seven years. “We didn’t feel any pressure at the start of the second six-game block today,” said Pan. “Towards the end it did begin to build, but our coach would not let us see the scoreboard, so we just focused on our game, although we did feel that the Koreans were close and had no idea that the Australians could have taken the gold from us in the tenth frame.”

If their government’s incentive scheme remains the same, the pair could be rewarded with the nice bounty of around U.S. $10,000 when they arrive home.

The ladies’ high game has been topped once again, this time by the Malaysian star, Shalin Zulkifli who hit 279 in her eleventh game. Unfortunately, it was not enough to bring the pair into medal positions and they had to be content with ninth place. Zulkifli’s game is, however, the high game of the Championships for men or women.

The men now take over the lanes for their final set of six-games, on the long oil condition. Current leaders are Chinese Taipei and China, tied on 2,515, with another Chinese duo in third place.

 LADIES' DOUBLES - FINAL STANDINGS: