18th December, Seberang Prai: Malaysian youth, Muhammad Akif Darwish of PTBPP and Katherine Ong of Singapore captured the Men's Grade B and Women's Graded Masters titles of the 50th Penang Pesta International Bowling Championships late Wednesday.

Muhammad Akif amassed a total of 1746 pinfalls to win his first major title by a massive margin of 166 pins. Singapore's Mah Jun Wai of Agape Bowling Academy settled for second position with a total of 1580. Indonesia's Brandon Johanes of SQIU finished third with 1562.

Kim Suk Won of Korea, who started well by leading the pack faded towards the end to miss the podium by 34 pins and had to share fourth position with Md Fadzly of Brunei with 1538.

Zainul Rahman of Indonesia, James Liaw of Brunei, Jovyn Gan of Singapore, Lin Shien Chung of Chinese Taipei and Donovan Tay Yong Jun of Singapore completed the top 10 in a field of 36 finalists.

Meanwhile, Singapore almost took the first two spots in the Women's Graded Masters finals but was denied by Malaysia's Lim Eng Guat of PTBPP. Katherine Ong of Singapore clinched the crown with a total of 1518, 31 pins ahead of Lim in second with 1487.

A second Singaporean, Ashley Zulkifly Minyi of SGCC took third spot with 1473 pinfalls. Nurul Ai'sya Sofea of MMBC/Penang, Malaysia missed the podium by just five pins to settle for fourth position with 1468. A further eight pins away came Nurul Aliya Najiha of Fama/Malaysia who rounded out the top five with 1460.

Qualifying will continue for the Mixed Grade A division up to Squad 51 ending at noon. Qualifying rounds for the Mixed Masters division will commence at 2:00pm local time with the first block of 6 games for Squad A and 4:00pm for Squad B followed by the Mixed Grade A Masters Finals at 6:00pm.

The second block will continue on December 20 when the top 40 with the two blocks total will qualify for the Masters Finals scheduled for December 21 at 10:00am. The top 3 with the highest pinfalls will proceed to the Stepladder Shootout Finals to determine the champion for the top prize of a whopping RM50,000.