16th July, Jakarta: Singapore national bowlers, Jasmine Yeong-Nathan and Cherie Tan gave a promising start in their first block Women's Open Masters finals of the 8th Indonesia International Open with a second and third place effort.

Both Jasmine Yeong-Nathan and Cherie Tan got off to a slow start managing only 188 and 176 in their opening games as Indonesian start, Putty Armein led her team-mate and one of the defending champions, Tannya Roumimper in second.

Tan settled down quicker than Jasmine to reel in 228, 203 and 241 in her next three games to surge into the lead while Jasmine continued to struggle with 167 in her second but started to pick up her pace with 251 and 223 to gradually move up the field.

By the fifth game, Cherie had 14 pins margin over Putty with Jasmine continuing to make up more grounds. A lowly 176 from Cherie saw Jasmine taking over the lead after she rolled 232.

Although Jasmine ended the block with 200 and 220, stronger than Cherie, Putty blazed the lanes with 231 and 219 to finish the first block with 1706, 23 pins ahead of Jasmine who totaled 1683.

Cherie hung on to a good third with 1645 and only 2 pins ahead of Malaysia's Zatil Iman in fourth with 1643 while the other defending champion, Shalin Zulkifli of Malaysia in fifth with 1630.

The second defending champion, Tannya Roumimper of Indonesia completed the top 6 with 1594. Geraldine Ng, who had a good first half struggled in the second half to end up in 14th position with 1505 ahead of Bernice Lim and Fok Ka Wai, who could not get into their usual strides to finish a dismal 22nd and 24th positions.

The women will resume with their second block tomorrow morning at 9.00am where the top 6 finishers will advance to the stepladder finals. The men will contest their first block this afternoon.

Detailed scores: Women's Open Block 1 | Photo Album.

Photos by Terence Yaw in Jakarta.