KUALA LUMPUR: National junior bowlers are performing well beyond expectations in international tournaments and this augurs well for the sport’s future, but the same cannot be said of the seniors.Names such as Adrian Ang, Zandra Aziela, Sin Li Jane and Siti Safiyah Amirah have been dominating the top spots in various international championships in the past six months.
Among the tournaments where they had done well included the 33rd Canon Open International Championship held at Sunway Pyramid Megalanes last week and the Brunswick Euro-Challenge 2010 in Paris earlier this month.
Adding into the list are the back-up elite squad members Hee Kar Yen and Yusuf Abdul Raof who advanced to the quarter-finals of the men’s and women’s open masters category respectively, in the 33rd Canon Open International.
Malaysian Tenpin Bowling Congress secretary Sydney Tung told Bernama that the association was very happy with the bowlers’ performance in recent tournaments, especially the display by the back-up elite squad.
“In the recent Canon Open, not only did we win the men’s open, we also had our two back-ups Yusuf and Kar Yen competing in top rounds.
“We are very proud of their performances, because both of them, even though they were facing stronger opponents, played very well,” he said.
In the Canon Open, 22-year-old Adrian won the men’s Open Masters title while Zandra showed an excellent performance by making five consecutive strikes during the Canon Cup match where Malaysia faced The Rest Of The World.
Tung said the declining performances of senior bowlers such as former Asian number one Shalin Zulkifli and national player Zulmazran Zulkifli were not something to be worried about.
“Zulmazran got unlucky in the Canon Open quarter-finals, but he managed to be in the top eight … and he did finish third in the last Euro-Challenge.
“As for Shalin, we did not expect her to perform just yet. She has just recovered from injury and still needs more time to get back to her usual performance,” he said.
Shalin had failed to advance to the top rounds in her last two international tournaments – The Canon International Open and The Brunswick Euro-Challenge.
The 32-year-old suffered an injury (sole) in training earlier this year and only started playing again last month.
Tung said the association was satisfied with the achievement of the national bowlers thus far and believed Malaysia was still one of the strongest teams in the world.
“The team is now resting to recover from the last two tournaments.
“We will start training maybe in two weeks time before gearing up for the next tournament,” he said.
The bowlers will face several tournaments in the coming weeks, including the Seventh Kuwait International Open, the Fourth Kingdom International Open in Saudi Arabia and the 36th MWA Thailand International Open. — Bernama