20th May, Manila: 2021 World Youth Singles silver medallist and rookie, Alyaa Addini of Malaysia led the Women's Open Round 1 finals of the PBF 4th Philippine International Open 2023 ahead of team-mate, Natasha Roslan in second and Singapore's Charmaine Chang third.

2021 Singapore national women champion, Charmaine Chang had a superb start with 222 in her opening game to lead Roslan by one pin followed by defending champion, Amabel Chua of Singapore in a close third. Chang continued to lead the pack with 213 in her second game.

2022 SEA Games Team silver medallist, Nur Syazwani Sahar of Malaysia added 220 to her 206 opener to move into second, just nine pins away from the leader while Roslan stumbled to a 181 game to slip down the field.

Nur Syazwani downed 224 to take over the running after the third game with Roslan recovering with 239 to regain second spot. Addini had 205, 214 and 213 in her first 3 games to go third at this stage with Chang and a third Malaysian, Sin Li Jane sharing fourth spots.

Addini followed it up with 224, 203, 279 and 221 in the second half to finish comfortably in the lead with 1798. Roslan, who was the 2006 World Youth Masters champion, had a consistent run to finish second with 1729, 69 pins adrift.

Chang also recovered to end the round in third position with 1640. Li Jane and Nur Syazwani claimed fourth and fifth position with 1616 and 1605 respectively. The sixth and final spot advancing to the next round, went to 2019 Philippine Open first runner-up, Lara Posadas-Wong with 1537.

2019 Asian Championships Masters gold medallist, Esther Cheah of Malaysia was the most unlucky finalist, missing the cut by 17 pins despite ending with a big game of 235 to finish seventh. The top 6 finishers in this round will be joined by the 6 seeded qualifiers (3 local, 3 overseas) for another 8 games in Round 2 tomorrow morning.

The top 3 men and top 3 women with the highest pinfalls at the end of the Round 2 finals will proceed to the Stepladder shootout finals to determine the champions.

Photos by Terence Yaw in Manila.