POWERED by the heroics of Southeast Asian Games double gold medalist Merwin Tan, the Philippines stunned top seed Malaysia 5-4 in a pulsating down-the-wire duel yesterday to advance to the men’s team semifinals of the IBF World Cup at the Suncity Bowl in Queensland, Australia.
With the best-of-5 match play series deadlocked at 2-all, Tan had a spare-strike in his punchout while Malaysia’s Tun Hakim could only muster a 9 on his final roll for a slim 207-206 win in the deciding match that powered the Pinoy keglers to the semifinals tomorrow.
The final score was 211-209, 207-231, 171-205, 219-213, and 207-206 in favor of the Filipinos, who entered the quarterfinals as the seventh seed with a 7-7 win-loss mark to Malaysia’s 12-2 slate. Their semis rival will be known at the end of the quarterfinals ongoing at press time.
“This performance was very good for us because we were up against the top-seeded Malaysians. Merwin played pretty well in the endgame. He kept his poise despite the pressure,” noted national men’s coach Biboy Rivera.
“We will have to stick to our strategy and play with consistency for the semifinals and hope to keep our game going,” added Rivera while citing the other team members — Jordan Dinham, Emerson Gotencio and Kenneth Chua — who kept the team in contention in their Aussie stint supported by the Philippine Sports Commission.
The triumph of the men’s squad came on the heels of the success of veteran Lara Posadas, who advanced to the women’s singles quarterfinals today after beating teammate Krizziah Tabora Macatula 3-2 in the round-of-16 knockout stage last Sunday.
