7th July, Kaohsiung: Taiwanese men put in another dominant display in the Men's Open ROund 1 Masters finals of the 17th Kaohsiung International Open Bowling Championships as Wu Chen-Chih led from start to finish to lead his compatriots taking up the top 11 spots.

Wu kicked off his campaign with a brilliant 232 to lead Chen Chia-Hsing by just four pins. Chen Lin-Yi and Li Yih-Ling followed closely with 225 and 224. Wu added another superb 225 to extend his lead slighly to ten pins after the second game and 12 after the third.

Although Wu lost his lead after the fourth game to Tsai Chih-Yen, the pace-setter bounced with 224 in the fifth to regain his lead, albeit just 2 pins ahead of Tsai. Tsai suffered a low game of 169 and Wu rolled a big game of 247 to stretch his lead to 48 pins after the sixth game.

Despite easing off in the last two games, Wu won the round with 1670. Tsai recovered to claim second position with 1666 while Wu Hao-Ming took third spot with 1665. Lin You-Yu, Hsieh CHin-Liang and Chen Chia-Hsing made up the top six with 1659, 1648 and 1646 respectively.

The next five places were all taken up by Taiwanese with the best non-spinner, Tony Wong of Hong Kong finishing 12th with 1609. Best left-hander was Atchariya Cheng of Thailand in 13th position with 1603.

The remaining finalists in the field failed to reach the 1600-mark in the 36-feet Stockholm oil pattern which the hook-ball bowlers finding the conditions not only tricky but extremely difficult to score well.

The men will resume with their second round of eight games tomorrow afternoon. The top six at the end of the finals will proceed to the stepladder shootout finals to determine the champion.

Photos by Terence Yaw in Kaohsiung.

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