16th September, Yancheng: 2017 Asian Intercity Championships two silver medallist, Ernest Kwok added another superb showing to Hong Kong team after topping the Men's Singles Squad A preliminaries at the 28th East Asian Tenpin Bowling Championships.

Kwok started of brilliantly with 249 to lead Korea's Lee Won Seok by a mere 3 pins. Cai Yangxin of China A downed 235 for third while Chinese Taipei's Shen Ying-Te and a second Korean, Han Jae-Hyeon was fourth and fifth.

The Hong Kong national kegler maintained a strong momentum reeling in 221 and 210 to stretch his lead over Lee to 20 pina at the halfway mark. Lee trailed Kwok with 217 and 197. Shen moved into third spot as Han was fourth.

There was no stopping Kwok as he added 225, 237 and 257 in the second half to comfortably end the squad in the lead with 1399. A third Korean, Oh Jin Won finished much stronger than his team-mate to snatch second spot with 1327.

The top 4 finishers from the combined two squads will advance to the knockout semi-finals with the topseed meeting the fourth-seed and the second-seed facing the third-seed over a one matchplay format immediately after the second squad ends.

The winner will square off in the final for the gold medal with the loser taking home the silver. The losing semi-finalists will be awarded a bronze medal each.

Participants of this year's championships will contest the Singles (6 games), Doubles (6 games), Trios (6 games) and Team of 5 (6 games) over the next four days.

The top 16 men and top 16 women in their respective All-Events standings based on 24 games contested, will qualify for the Elimination Knockout Masters finals which will be staged on September 20 and 21.

Photos by Terence Yaw in Yancheng, China.