22nd June, Macau: Thailand's Kantaporn Singhabuboha snatched victory in the Women's Open Round 1 Masters final of the 2018 Macao-China International Open from Malaysia's Hee Kar Yen settling for second and Korea's Lee Hyeon Gyung third.

2016 Thailand International Open Ladies' champion, Yanee Saebe of Thailand got off to a great start with 255 in her opening game to lead Jang Ryeon Gyeong of Korea National Sport University by 8 pins followed by 2018 World Championships Singles bronze medallist, Chan Shuk Han of Hong Kong in third.

Jang followed her opening game of 247 with 198 in the second game to take over the running and moving ahead of Chan by 2 pins. Yanee slipped to third a further 7 pins away with Japan's Futaba Imai taking up fourth, 6 pins adrift the Thai.

Chan's third game of 204 gave her the lead as Imai improved to second. Both Jang and Yanee suffered low games to quickly drop out of contention. A second Korean, Kim Hyun A rolled a big game of 248 in the fourth game adding to her third game of 234 to move into the lead.

The Hong Kong national continued to trail in second with the Malaysian a close third. The lead went on to end the round with 243, 189 and 245 to take victory with 1759. Hee also ended well with 252, 238 and 201 to clinch second spot with 1732.

Lee Hyeon Gyung of Korea stormed home with 229, 235 and 227 to snatch third position with 1711 while Kim and Chan completed the top 5 with 1710 and 1667 respectively. Early pace-setter, Jang fizzled off to miss the cut in a disappointing 14th position.

Macau's Hui Tong squeezed into the next round in 12th position with 1547 as Nattida Sertluecha of Thailand missed by 4 pins finishing 13th position. Defending champion, Radin Nur Najwa of Malaysia failed to get into her strides and ended in a disappointing 23rd position.

The top 12 advanced to Round 2 finals joined by the three local and three overseas seeded qualifiers. They will resume with Round 2 finals from scratch tomorrow morning and the top 6 with a highest pinfall will proceed to the Stepladder shootout finals.

Photos by Terence Yaw in Macau, China.