Two new National Champions have emerged from the recent 34th Malaysian National Bowling Championships…one each in the Men’s and Ladies’ Divisions. For Aaron Kong who hails from Penang, it has been a long overdue win as he has not won a title since winning the Youth Masters Gold medal at the 2008 World Youth Championship held in Orlando, USA.

The 24-yr old bowler has had a rather challenging year after trying to adapt to a new bowling style without much success. By clinching his first National Closed title, he has laid to rest his jinx of finishing in second position at numerous tournaments.

On Saturday, Aaron, who trailed in sixth position after a ten-game Masters Finals roll off, managed to defeat third seed, World Cup representative and former National Champion, Zulmazran Zulkifli with a 2-0 win at the quarter finals round (214-204,269-180). He went on to demolish top seed, two-times National Champion Adrian Ang 2-0 in the semi finals (216-185,237-227) to set up a challenge with Defending Champion, Muhd Shafiq Ridhwan. Nothing was going to stop him from claiming his first National Championship title. He breezed through his challenge with Shafiq with wins of 204-163 and 202-182 in the best of three games format. Aaron pocketed RM 7000 for his win.

In the Ladies’ Division, National backup squad member Sin Li Jane had a more challenging path to the top. She had trailed top seed and former National Champion Sharon Koh by only nine pins after a ten-game Masters Finals to finish second on the table. In the quarter finals, she defeated Penang Pesta 2009 Champion Zatil Iman in straight sets of 185-162,195-180 wins to proceed to the semi finals against fifth seed and former National Champion Wendy Chai. She rolled games of 236-214-237 to defeat Wendy who only managed games of 203-222-189 for a 2-1 win over Wendy.

In the Grand Finals round, Li Jane also was stretched to a three-game decider with sixth seed Fatin Syazliana, also a member of the National backup squad. Fatin opened with a 246-218 win over Li Jane, who came back with a 229-207 win over Fatin in the second game. In the final decider, Li Jane stormed home with a 215-175 win to claim her first National Closed Championship title. Li Jane won herself RM3000 prize money.

18-yrs old Li Jane, from Perak, has had some time off to prepare for her SPM exams. She’s happy to have done well this time round as she did not fare well at the recent All Stars and Penang Pesta. Li Jane is hoping that this will be the start of better performances in the year ahead.

Men’s Open final results:

CHAMPION: Aaron Kong
2. Muhd Shafiq Ridhwan
3. Adrian Ang
4. Kelvin Keong
5. Zulmazran Zulkifli
6. Mohd Zaim
7. Muhd Nur Aiman
8. Kang Bo Long

Ladies’ Open final results:

CHAMPION: Sin Li Jane
2. Fatin Syazliana
3. Sharon Koh
4. Wendy Chai
5. Nur Syakirah Yeoh
6. Zandra Aziela
7. Zatil Iman
8. Yap Wi Yin

For more detailed scores, visit MTBC official website.

Have a great bowling year ahead.

Jonathan

The 10th edition of the MILO International Junior All-Stars is already in progress at Sunway Megalanes, Malaysia. Qualifying rounds commenced on Dec 9 and will continue until Dec 18, with the Open Masters on Dec 19.

Touted as one of the most popular Youth Tournaments in the world, this year’s tournament is expected to attract 600-700 youths from 12 countries.

Top youths aged 23 and below from Australia, Chinese Taipei, Germany, Hong Kong, Korea, Holland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, together with Malaysian youths, will pit their skills to topple the two defending Champions who happen to be Malaysia’s Sin Li Jane and Adrian Ang.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s National Elite Back-Up Squad member, Kang Bo Long, shot the tournament’s first Perfect Game on the opening night of qualifyings. The 23 yr old youth who was promoted to the Back-Up squad this year, has been bowling since he was 13 yrs old. He was the 2007 Singapore Youth Champion, 2008 Malaysian Open second runner-up, and together with teammates Rodson Tong, Kelvin Keong and Syafiq Ridhwan, won a silver medal for Malaysia at the 3rd Asian Indoor Games 2009 in Ho Chi Minh City. This is Bo Long’s first perfect game at an official tournament…although he has shot 6 perfect games during training times.

Be seeing you at the Junior All-Stars,

Jonathan

 A Happy New Year to all our readers. May 2009 prove to be an even more successful year than last year!

The 9th Milo World Junior All-Stars Bowling Championship concluded with one of my former youth bowlers successfully defending his title. This makes Adrian Ang the only ‘Boys Open’ youth bowler to have won this Championship a record 3 times! Congratulations Adrian. Also to Malaysia’s Sin Li Jane who captured the ‘Girls Open’ Championship…her first International title.

However, one bowler did stand out among the participants…Saudi Arabia’s Bader Al-Shaikh. It was a joy to watch this very talented bowler bowl an 816 qualifying score. Speaking to him later, Ivy discovered that his highest 3-game series was actually 851 (278-300-273) at a tournament in Saudi Arabia.

When pressed on how he was able to achieve such impressive scores, he gave credit to his former English Coach, Mario Joseph, who was in Saudi on a 3-yr contract.

Bader Al-Shaikh started bowling at the tender age of 10 years. It became a passion that saw him practising between 5-6 hrs daily (seven days a week) during his first 6 yrs into bowling. So when his English Coach appeared on the scene, he was able to scale new heights in his bowling career.

Bader achieved his first perfect game at the age of 14 yrs and has a whopping 24 perfect games (300) to his credit today…aged 21. He also won 2 golds at the Asian Games in Doha in 2006, capturing the All Events gold and the Doubles gold with his 18 yrs’ old brother, Hassan, and a host of other titles.

Although bowling is his passion, Bader has decided that studies must also come first. He has been residing in Brisbane, Australia for the past 3 mths to further his studies on Finance.

Bader has been to Malaysia 3 times and says he’s happy to be back again as Malaysia is one of his favorite countries to visit…’so amazing’…so he says!

You can find more information on him here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bader-AL-alshaikh/17893255677

A small tip here…most Champion bowlers, or should I say ‘every’ Champion started out by bowling 7 days-a-week! No short cuts here, you must clock in the appropriate number of lane time to be successful. So make your New Year resolution to clock in more training time at the bowling alley this year!

Happy bowling

Jonathan