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PETALING JAYA: Young bowler Zatil Iman (pic) will be the new kid on the block for Malaysia in the World Ranking Masters to be held in Jakarta from May 1-5.
An impressive three gold medal showing in the recent SEA Games in Thailand saw the 18-year-old making the cut for the first time in the women's competition of the world meet.
Zatil finished fifth on 270 points in the Asian rankings and will join seasoned campaigner Shalin Zulkifli, who was placed third on 306 points after taking into account 28 tournaments on the calendar.
However, Wendy Chai, who won the Asian Bowling Federation (ABF) Grand Finals in January, just missed out on making the top eight grade.
Wendy was placed ninth and another Malaysian, Esther Cheah, was in 16th spot in the rankings list.
Malaysia will have three men in the fray. Daniel Lim was the highest ranked Malaysian in fifth place on 275 points followed by Zulmazran Zulkifli on 267 points. Alex Liew, who also won the ABF Grand Finals title, made the cut in eighth spot on 247 points.
The top eight bowlers from the Asian, European and the American zones will see action in Jakarta.
AMF World Cup runners-up Jason Belmonte of Australia and Kim Eun-jung of South Korea topped the men's and women's ranking lists respectively.
For national coach Holloway Cheah, it is still a good achievement to place three male and two female bowlers in the world meet.
“We still have good representation despite not competing in as many tournaments in Asia compared to previous years,” he said.
“Our focus was more on the European tournaments because we were preparing the women for the World Championships (in Mexico in September) this year.
“Wendy could have made the cut too but she opted out of the SEA Games and did not earn enough ranking points. But we still have the experienced Shalin in the fray and I think we can pose strong challenges in both divisions,” he added.
Malaysia also did not send the national bowlers on the ABF Tour this year, joining Singapore and Taiwan in opting out because of its poor organisation.
Holloway was also delighted that with Zatil making the cut, Malaysia managed to continue the tradition of bringing up one bowler to come out at the international scene each year.
“It's good that we have another lefthander in Zatil. She is very likely to join Sharon Koh (also a southpaw) in the national elite team next year as she has proved herself over the last three months,” said Holloway.
Zatil bagged her first international title at the Singapore Open and won silver in the Asian Indoor Games in Macau.
And she emerged as a star at the SEA Games competitions in Bangkok, bagging gold medals in the doubles (with Esther), trios (with Esther and Shalin) and the five-woman team (with Esther, Shalin, Sharon and Siti Safiyah Amirah Abdul Rahman).
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