18th October, Jakarta: Park Jin Hee of Korea successfully retained the Women's crown of the seventh and final ABF Tour leg while Filipino, Chester King clinched his first-ever Men's tour title at Jaya Ancol Bowling Center Sunday evening.

Having lost yesterday's Ancol Open title match to Shalin Zulkifli, Park took a sweet revenge to reverse the order by outclassing the Malaysian in the finals and successfully retained the title she won last year.

The Korean had an aweful start when she accidentally dropped her ball in her first throw to hit 7 pins then failing to spare the frame as Shalin struck in the first and spared in the second frame.

But the 1999 World Championship gold medalist recovered with a spare and a double in the second, third and fourth frames to draw level with Shalin. The game only looked to favour the Korean as she streaked to a four bagger from frame sixth onwards which put her opponent on her back foot.

Park went on to cruise to a convincing victory to claim the title for the second successive time. Shalin came home with 193 ending her hope of becoming the second Malaysian to win back-to-back preceeding Open Championship and tour titles.

"When I dropped the ball at the start of the match, I hurt my finger slightly and it was quite painful," said the 33-year-old ex-national from Suwon, Korea. "But after I got two strikes, I didn't feel the pain anymore."

Park had earlier ousted Ancol Open second runnerup, Vanessa Fung of Hong Kong, 198-184 in the semi-finals to advance book her place in the finals while Shalin Zulkifli sailed into through with a comfortable victory over local favourite, Tannya Roumimper 235-192.

Despite finishing second, Shalin chalked up 60 points which earned the Malaysian a place in the Grand finals in her only appearance in the tour this year. Putty Armein of Indonesia topped the rankings with 201 points.

Meanwhile, Chester King also assured his place in the Grand finals with a victory in the men's division. Both Phiriyahbhoon Pithakvarakorn of Thailand and King had disasterous starts when they opened their first frames.

As the Thai settled down quicker, the Filipino opened another two frames in the third and fourth which had the match swung into Phiriyahbhoon's favour. But the Thai also opened two more frames by the halfway mark evening things out.

King made a better recovery to reel in three consecutive strikes but a final frame split gave Phiriyahbhoon in with a shout if he could strike home. Another costly split decided the final outcome for the Filipino to clinch his first-ever tour title.

"I bowled alot better in the semi as I knew that I had to make the grand finals with enough points," said the 32-year-old 2008 Asian Championship two gold medalist, Chester King.

"So I lost a bit of my focus in the finals. But when I saw that my opponent struggling in the match, it settled me down nicely." King had 17 points going into this leg and anything less than an appearance in the finals would not have earned him sufficient points to make the grand finals.

The champion eliminated Ancol Open second runnerup, Adrian Ang of Malaysia with the highest game of the tour, 269-174 in the earlier semi-final match while Phiriyahbhoon ousted another Malaysian, Aaron Kong, 216-198 in the first semi.

Yannaphon Larpaharat of Thailand topped the final rankings with 153 points followed by Saudi leg first runnerup, Ryan Lalisang of Indonesia and Hong Kong leg champion, Shaker Al-Hassan of UAE third.

The top 16 men and top 16 women in the tour rankings qualified for the Tournament of Champions which will be held in January 14-17, 2010.

For further information and details, please contact ABF Tour Committee at Tel: +852 2893 6039, Fax: +852 2893 6290; Email: info@abftour.com.

Photos by Terence Yaw in Jakarta.