18th January, Jakarta: Tang Joh Six of Malaysia finally nailed her first major title to emerged as the Women's champion of the ABF Tour Tournament of Champions while Andrew Frawley of Australia clinched the men's crown at Jaya Ancol Bowling Centre on Sunday.

A closely fought finals saw Malaysia's Tang Joh Six winning the women's crown. Tang made no mistakes throughout the match against Hong Kong's Vanessa Fung and a double strike in the sixth and seventh frames gave the Malaysian a slight edge.

But the 36-year-old champion of the 2005 and 2006 Kuwait Open fought on galantly with a turkey from frame eight onwards to give herself a chance of toppling Tang. Needing a strike in the tenth frame, an unfortunate split saw Tang clinching the crown with 207 against Vanessa's 202.

"I'm so happy with this win and I'll certainly treasure it for many years to come," said the 28-year-old ex-national, Tang. "This will be a welcomed Chinese New Year ang pow. The champion made the finals by narrowly edging topseed, Tannya Roumimper of Indonesia, 179-170.

Tang sailed through to the semi-finals with a victory over China's Chen Dongdong, 205-163 in the qaurter-finals. Vanessa reached the finals by ousting another Chinese, Yang Suling, 194-188 and Indonesia's Sharon Limansantoso, 211-201 in the quarter-finals.

The Malaysian champion earned US$10,000 as the first runnerup settled for US$5,000. Both the losing semi-finalists, Yang and Tannya took home US$3,000 each.

Filipino, Biboy Rivera set a cracking pace with a turkey in the final match against Andrew Frawley of Australia to take a 19 pin lead. But the 45-year-old responded with five strikes in a row as Rivera also downed another turkey leaving only 1 pin separating the two in the eighth frame.

Rivera struck in the ninth frame but failed to chalk up another in the final frame ending his match with 235 while the Aussie closed out with a turkey to seal the victory with 249. The victory gave Frawley the top prize of US$20,000 with Rivera settling for US$8,000 as first runnerup.

"It has been eight years since taking part in the tour and this is really a hard-earned victory," said Frawley after being presented with the trophy by ABF President, Sheikh Talal M. Al-Sabah.

"I'm extremely happy that ABF continued to bring this tour to bowlers in Asia and I've to thank the sponsors and the ABF Tour committee. Biboy is a tough competitor and he bowled well throughout this tournament.

The champion reached the finals ousting another Filipino contender, Chester King 219-187 in the first semifinals and topseed, Somjed Kusonpithak of Thailand, 190-180 in the quarter-finals.

Rivera defeated favourite and 2006 TOC champion, Wu Siu Hong of Hong Kong, 208-163 to advance into the title match and second-seed, Sithiphol Kunaksorn of Thailand, 247-203 in the quarter-finals.

Highlights of the ABF Tour - TOC will be telecast on Astro Supersport at a later date. For detailed scores, please visit www.abftour.com.

Photos by Terence Yaw.