6th January, Jakarta: Seven countries will be represented in an even field as the top 8 men and top 8 women made the quaterfinals of the ABF Tour Tournament of Champions at the end of the 15-game round-robin matchplay Friday evening.

Singapore's Jennifer Tan retained pole position but with only with a slender lead of 11 pins while Thailand's Yannaphon Larpapharat snatched top-seed in the final match from overnight leader, Remy Ong of Singapore. Malaysia has 4 women and 3 men in the quarterfinal knockout stage.

At the start of the second block of today's matches, Yannaphon Larpapharat of Thailand set a blistering pace bring home lines of 228, 231, 217 in the first three games to narrow down the gap between himself and the leader, Remy

Ong to 9 pins. But the World Youth CHampionship Masters Gold medalist, suffered a poor game of 171 in the fourth to fall back to a 63 pins deficit.

Yannaphon fought on galantly to reduce the gap and was just five pins adrift going into the final match. A 205 plus a 5 point bonus for a draw was good enough to see the Thai snatching the lead and finishing top seed with 3320 pinfalls.

Overnight leader, Remy Ong of Singapore settled for second with 3296 while home crowd favourite, Ryan Lalisang made a big move from tenth overnight to third place with a high game of 290 followed by 246 and 278.

Malaysia's Aaron Kong, Daniel Lim and Alex Liew maintained their strong pace to make the quarterfinals with Aaron in fourth position on a total of 3226, Alex in fifth with 3145 and Daniel sixth with 3145.

Last year’s winner Hong Kong’s Wu Siu Hong, who was eighth before the final game, ended up in 11th with a poor game of 133 in the final match while Surasak Manuwong of Thailand shot a high 234 to snatch the eighth place. Andrew Frawley who played Wu in the final game, only dropped to seventh from sixth despite of a poor 152.

In the women's division, top-ranked women bowler of the 2005 Tour, Lai Kin Ngoh of Malaysia, made a massive move from seventh overnight to finish second with 3054, just 11 pins behind leader, Jennifer Tan of Singapore. Last year’s winner, Wendy Chai also made an impressive jump from sixth to third place with 3027.

Chinese Taipei's Wang Yu Ling and Tsai Hsin Yi finished fourth and fifth with 3000 and 2969 respectively with the less fourtunate, Chu Yu Chieh failing to make the cut in 14th. The most improved Malaysian was Choy Poh Lai, who was in 14th yesterday, made a huge jump to edge Tang Joh Six by 4 pins for final spot of the quarterfinals with 2851.

Last year's runner-up, Esther Cheah, who was in eighth place with one more

game to go, bowled a poor 145 to miss the cut by 24 pins in 11th position while youngster, Siti Safiyah ended her debut in the TOC in 13th place with 2787.

The draw for tomorrow’s quarterfinals was conducted at the centre after the end of the round-robin. The Malaysian women bowlers have assured themselves of two semifinals slots as they were drawn to play each other. Wendy will face Zandra while Lai Kin Ngoh will meet Poh Lai. Filipina, Liza Clutario is matched up against top-seed, Jennifer and the two Taiwanese women is drawn together.

In the men’s division, Aaron is matched up against Andrew Frawley of Australia, Daniel will meet Remy Ong and Alex will face Ryan Lalisang. Two Thais, Surasak Manuwong will face a daunting task of top-seed, Yannaphon. The women's matches will start at 2.00pm and the men at 3.00pm local time.

The ABF Tour comprises eight Legs and a Grand Final, the Tournament of Champions. Each Leg was staged over two competition days where the top 16 men and 16 women bowlers from the preceding International Open Masters Event (Open Grade) competed in a one-game match play knock-out competition for the individual men's and women's titles and earn ranking points for the TOC.

The ABF Tour - TOC will be telecast on some of the key television stations in the region. For further information and details please contact ABF Tour Committee Marketing and Event Management Division at Tel: (852) 2810 5191; Fax: (852) 28105192; Mr. Ritchie Lai (Mobile: (852) 93598669; email: ritchie.lai@tndgroup.com) or Mr. Kelvin Pong (Mobile: (852) 9100 0958; email: Kelvin.pong@tndgroup.com).