5th March, Taoyuan: 2024 Malaysian Open Youth Open champion, Ethan Damien Goh and Syaffique Ikhwan of Malaysia shone in the opening squad of the 2nd Formosa International Bowling Classic 2025 taking top spot and third position with Hong Kong's Ernest Kwok in second.

Hong Kong youths got off to a superb start with Dylan Lam taking the early lead with their 246 and Daniel Tse in third with 236 opener. Chinese Taipei's Hsu Tzu Yu split the duo in second with 238. But Lam suffered a low 145 in his second game to slip down the field.

Tse took over the running with another strong game of 222. Ex-Hong Kong national, Ernest Kwok quickly moved into second with 236 following his moderate 208 in his first game. Hsu slipped to third with 204 while Malaysia's Muhammad Noor Hidayat improved to take up fourth.

Kwok kept a strong pace with 210 and 244 in his next two games to become the new leader. Ethan Damien Goh, who did not have a good start, added two superb games of 228 and 234 to move up into second, 20 pins behind the leader. A third Malaysian, Syaffique Ikhwan, who was second after three games, dropped to third.

Goh ended with 208 to snatch top spot with 1086, just two pins ahead of Kwok in second with 1084 after ending with only 186. Ikhwan finished a creditable third with 1068. Hsu and Chinese Taipei national bowler, Xu Zhe Jia rounding out the top 5.

Squad B will take to the lanes at Dongdong Bowling Alley for their first block of 5 games. Squads D and C will end the first day of the qualifying rounds. At the end of the three blocks, the top three local and top three overseas bowlers will earn a bye and skip Round 1 Finals.

Qualifiers positioned 7 to 51 plus top three qualifiers from the one-game desperado squad will contest Round 1 finals over 6 games. The top 26 with the highest pinfalls will advance to Round 2 finals for another 6 games, joined by the six seeded qualifiers from the general standings.

The top six at the end of Round 2 will proceed to the Stepladder elimination knockout finals with 4th, 5th and 6th seeded finalist meeting in the first match. The winner will proceed to the second match against the 2nd and 3rd seed over one game.