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Bowlers sit for Tokyo test for world championships

They won three golds and four silvers in five events at the recent South-east Asia (SEA) Games here.

Yet, there has been a feeling that the women's bowling team have not been at their best, after they lost the team gold to Malaysia and failed to win a doubles medal.

"I think we did decently well at the Games," said SEA Games women's singles silver medallist and Masters champion Jazreel Tan yesterday at the NSRCC bowling centre.

"There were outside expectations on us to win all five golds. We trained very hard leading up to the SEA Games and wished we could have done better but, in terms of performance, we gave of our best.

"Sometimes people forget also that Malaysia (who won the doubles and team golds) are a world-class team too."

National coach Remy Ong, who will conduct a SEA Games post-mortem by the end of the month, said: "We won three out of five gold medals, I don't see why anyone should be disappointed.

"Could we have won more? We would need to really dig into the nitty gritty to find out."

GLOBAL EVENT

The team have had two weeks off after the SEA Games and will leave this morning for Japan, where they will compete in the Bowling World Open from tomorrow to Sunday.

The tournament, in Tokyo, is their first competitive outing since the biennial Games and also an important global event, as it will be used to push for the sport's inclusion in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Singapore will be represented by a nine-woman team - Jazreel, Daphne Tan, New Hui Fen, Jasmine Yeong-Nathan, Cherie Tan, Geraldine Ng, Bernice Lim, Shayna Ng and Joey Yeo - as well as male bowlers Muhammad Jaris Goh and SEA Games men's singles bronze medallist Javier Tan.

The tournament, which will have professionals and the best of the various countries, will have a significant impact on their participation in the World Tenpin Bowling Championships for Women in December.

SEA Games women's singles gold medallist Daphne Tan said: "It is a singles competition and the coaches will use the results from Japan as part of the selection for the World Championships.

"So it's our first big test after the SEA Games."

Their SEA Games performances, though, will not count.

Ong said: "They will all start on a clean sheet, it's up to them to prove to the high-performance team that they deserve to be selected for the World Championships."

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