14th April, Cairo: Wendy Chai of Malaysia retained the Women's title of the 8th Sinai International Open Bowling Championship while Mahmoud Mazloum became the first-ever Egyptian to win an-Asian Ranked tournament by claiming the men's crown.

Chai, 28, who ended the 8-games Round-robin matchplay finals as top-seed, defeated compatriot and winner of the ladies' second stepladder match, Zandra Aziela, 245-191 to capture the title for the second time. Determined to retain the title, the defending champion was on a rampage with 8 strikes-in-a-row from frame 4 onwards to cruise home an easy victory.

Zandra, who was never in the hunt, had two open frames and had to settle for second. Zandra had earlier ousted teammate, Choy Poh Lai, 227-192 before loosing to Chai. It was anybody's match between fourth-seed Zandra and ABF Tour Malaysia Leg champion, Vanessa Fung of Hong Kong.

Vanessa only needed to spare her 10th frame to move up the ladder but left 3-6-9-10 standing and failed to make the spare. Chai went home US$3,000 richer while Zandra won US$1,500. Malaysia repeated the feat of last year when the trio finished 1-2-3 in the finals.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Mazloum became the first-ever Eqyptian to win an Asian Ranking tournament when he defeated 2004 Asian-ranked No. 1 and 2004 ABF Tour TOC champion, Wu Siu Hong of Hong Kong, 206-189 to claim the men's crown.

Mahmoud needed only a strike in the final frame to deny the top-seed winning the title and he duly oblidged sending the local supporters wild. Wu settled for second despite topping the 16-game Round-robin matchplay finals earlier.

The men's first stepladder match bewteen fourth-seed Dhari Al-Ameri of Kuwait and third-seed, Mohamed B Soltan was the lowest in the Sinai Open history with Dhari narrowly defeating Mohamed 170-165.

Match 2 saw the second-seed and eventual champion, Mahmoud Mazloum of Eqypt on fire as he out-paced his challenger, Mohamed B Soltan of Saudi Arabia, 255-201 to earn a crack at the title. Mahmoud won US$7,000 for his effort while the runner-up took home US$3,500.

Photos courtesy of Tarek Helmy, Egyptian Bowling Federation.