12th May, Manila: Third-seed, Sam Cooley of Australia defeated the topseed to win the Men's Open Masters title of the PBF 2nd Philippine International Open while topseed, Liza Del Rosario of Philippines claimed her sixth Philippine Open Masters Ladies' crown.

Cooley, who had a disastrous start in the earlier Round 2 finals, had almost given up hope of ever finishing in the top 10. But the Aussie eventually strung together three superb games of 245, 248 and 237 before firing a stunning 278 in his eighth and final game to squeeze into the top three.

Winner of yesterday's Round 1 finals, Mike Chan of Hong Kong continued where he left off to win the second round with 1819. JP Macatula of MBA-Timberpro was Philippines' best performer taking second spot with 1761, nine pins ahead of Cooley.

Chan's team-mate, Michael Mak missed the cut by four pins to finish fourth with 1748 followed by defending chamnpion, Kenneth Chua of Philippines in fifth position with 1745 and sole Singapore finalist, Joel Tan in sixth with a same score.

While both had an open frame in the second match, Cooley managed to recover as Chan continued to struggle. Cooley went on to beat Chan, 195-148 to claim the title and pocket the top prize of 500,000 Philippine peso (approx. US$9,500).

Chan took home 250,000 peso while Macatula earned 125,000 peso. Mak and Tan picked 80,000 and 70,000 peso for finishing fourth and fifth positions respectively.

Meanwhile, topseed Liza Del Rosario was forced into a third and deciding match after winning one match each. Second-seed and challnger, Rachelle Leon had looked certain to win the first match when all she needed was to make her single 9-pin spare in her final frame.

But she missed the pin to hand the match to Del Rosario, 203-204. But Leon recovered to force the decider after she beat Del Rosario, 228-202 in the second match. When Del Rosario rolled four strikes-in-a-row in the final match, Leon just could not respond.

The topseed eventually struck out from frame 8 to win the final match, 258-194 and claimed her sixth Philippine Open Ladies' Masters title. The champion last won the title back in 2007 when it was held at SM Bowling Center, Mall of Asia.

Del Rosario won the top prize of 200,000 peso as champion. Leon, who settled for 100,000 peso, had earlier thrashed third-seed, Dyan Coronacion, 225-148 in the semi-finals to advance to the title match.

Coronacion pocketed 50,000 peso as second runner-up. Del Rosario, who won Round 1 finals yesterday, earned topseed for the stepladder finals after she topped the Round 2 finals again with 1742.

Leon finished in a distant second with 1641, 101 pins adrift while Coronacion made the stepladder finals with 1639 in third. Defending champion. Lara Posadas and top qualifier, Krizziah Tabora completed the top five with 1636 and 1630 respectively.