23rd August, Palembang: Defending champion and Japan's first trio of Tomoyuki Sasaki, Shogo Wada and Shusaku Asato rolled three stunning games of 700, 788 and 798 to lead the Men's Trios opening block of the 18th Asian Games Palembang 2018.

Malaysia's first trio of Adrian Ang, Muhd Syafiq Ridhwan and 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games two gold medallist, Alex Liew got off the block with a superb 746 to lead Hong Kong's first trio of Eric Tseng, Michael Mak and 2014 Incheon Asian Games Masters silver medallist, Wu Siu Hong in second, just 5 pins behind.

Singapore's Alex Chong, Darren Ong and Muhd Jaris Goh followed in third with 739. Japan's second trio was fourth with 721 and Indonesia's strong trio of Ryan Lalisang, Billy Muhammad Islam and Hardy Rachmadian fifth with 720.

Although Sasaki, Wada and Asato had a moderate start of 700, the trio scorched the medium oil pattern at Jakabaring Bowling Center with a stunning 788 in the second game to take over the running.

Malaysia finished second with 2198 with a decent third game of 743. Singapore bounced back 723 to take up third position with 2135. Chinese Taipei's second trio of Chen Hsin-An, Chen Ming-Tang and Hung Kun-Ki did well to finish fourth with 2133, just one pin ahead of the other Japanese trio rounding our the top 5 with 2132.

The fancied Korean trio of Kim Jingwook, Koo Seonghoi and 2014 World Championships Masters gold medallist, Kang Heewon could only end the first block in sixth position with 2120 while Hong Kong 1 was seventh.

The men will resume with their second block of 3 games over the long oil pattern and the first three finishers will be awarded the gold, silver and bronze medals in the award ceremony immediately following.

Competition will shift to the Team of 6 event tomorrow for the Women division again over two blocks of 3 games each on the long and medium oil patterns. The Men's Team of 6 will be contested on August 25.