27th March, P.Jaya: Malaysian women completed Day One of the inaugural ABF Tour 2004 occupying 3 of the four semi final berths at Pyramid Megalanes.

Hong Kong Open champion, Wendy Chai, Siti Khadijah Osman and Sarah Yap were joined by Singapore's Alice Tay who will battle it out in tomorrow's semi finals. The first leg of the ABF Tour will be telecast LIVE on Astro Supersport at 14:00 hours local time.

Leading the charge in the women division is Wendy Chai, who ousted second-seed Wang Yu-Ling 216-205 in Round 1 before knocking out Indonesia's Putty Armein 248-222 in the quarter finals to qualify for the semi finals. Joining Wendy is the local sensation and 2nd-runnerup in the Malaysian International Open, Siti Khadijah Osman. Siti Khadijah defeated ex-international Low Poh Lian 225-204 in Round 2 and 16 year-old Sharon Koh 208-171 in Round 1.

The third Malaysian to occupy a semi final spot is Sarah Yap, who scored two high games to move into the last four. Sarah easily defeated Chinese Taipei's Chu Yu-Chieh 242-193 in her first match and another Taiwanese Chien Hsiu-Lan 237-213 in the second match. The last semi final spot went to Singapore's Alice Tay after she narrowly defeated teammate and 2002 World Ranking Masters champion, Jennifer Tan 187-169 in Round 2. Local crowd favourite Shalin Zulkifli struggled to display the form when she captured the Malaysian Open title, going down to Jennifer Tan 161-217 in Round 1.

Alice Tay will meet Sarah Yap in the first of the women's semi finals matches tomorrow while Siti Khadijah and Wendy Chai will face off in the other all-Malaysian semi final match.

In the men's division, newly-crowned Malaysian Open champion, Daniel Lim was unlucky not to move ahead after loosing to Ahmed Shaheen of Qatar 233-247 in Round 1. Shaheen, however found 2003 Asian Ranked No. 1 Wu Siu Hong from Hong Kong too good, going down 226-258 in the quarter final. Malaysia's hopes were also dashed when Azidi Ameran lost to UAE's Sultan Al-Marzouqi 201-224 in the other quarter final match.

Azidi sent a large crowd of local supporters wild when he reeled off 11 consecutive strikes and was denied a perfect game after he left pin-7 standing on his final throw. Ex-international, Mustafa Yassin could not carry Malaysia's flag into the semi finals after being ousted by Malaysian Open 1st runner-up, Kao Hai Yuan 266-195 during the quarter finals.

Indonesia's Ryan Lalisang who shot two consecutive high games of 289 and 270 in both his matches, made the semi finals while Kao Hai Yuan took up the final spot. Wu Siu Hong will face Sultan Al-Marzouqi while Ryan Lalisang is matched up against Kao Hai Yuan.

The ABF Tour will comprise six Legs and a Grand Final, the Tournament of Champions. Each Leg will be staged over two competition days where the top 16 men and 16 women bowlers from the preceding International Open Masters Event (Open Grade) will compete in a one-game match play knock-out competition for the individual men's and women's titles.

The Tournament of Champions will be staged over four competition days where the top 16 men and 16 women bowlers (based on ABF Tour ranking points), plus two additional wildcard entries from the West Asia region (thus totalling 18 men in the men's division), will qualify to compete over four rounds of competition for the coveted men's and women's ABF Tour Champion titles.

Highlights of the ABF Tour Malaysia Day One matches will be telecast on Astro Supersport an hour before the LIVE coverage of the semi final and final matches March 28 starting at 14:00 local time.

For further information and details please contact ABF Tour Committee Marketing and Event Management Division at Tel: (852) 2810 5191; Fax: (852) 28105192; Mr. Ritchie Lai (Mobile: (852) 93598669; email: ritchie.lai@tndgroup.com) or Mr. Kelvin Pong (Mobile: (852) 9100 0958; email: Kelvin.pong@tndgroup.com) or by visiting ABF Tour official website: www.abftour.com.