Great job, kids!

Ameerul breaks the duck to share golden spotlight with Nurul Dini

Tun Ameerul Hakim Tun Hasnul Azam (left) and Puteri Nurul Dini Faudzi showing off their gold medals after blazing the lanes to claim the boys’ and girls’ Masters titles on the final day of the 18th Asian Schools Tenpin Bowling Championships in Kuching, Sarawak, yesterday.

PETALING JAYA: There was double joy for Malaysia when Tun Ameerul Hakim Tun Hasnul Azam and Puteri Nurul Dini Faudzi blazed the lanes to claim the boys’ and girls’ Masters titles on the final day of the 18th Asian Schools Tenpin Bowling Championships in Kuching, Sarawak.

While the Malaysian girls have been celebrating at the end of each day with a gold medal since the meet started on Monday, it was left to Ameerul to break the duck when he saw off top seed Alex Yu of Hong Kong in both games of the deciding stepladder final – winning 269-205, 201-181.

Ameerul had beaten third seed Shoumick Datta of India 279-237 in the first stepladder match earlier at the Megalanes Sarawak in Kuching.

Before reaching the stepladder finals, Ameerul amassed a total of 3,685 pinfalls after two blocks of eight games each to be placed second behind Alex (3,791).

Nurul Dini capped off a fine week with a brilliant 458-369 (207176, 251-193) win over Singapore’s Fion Liew in the girls’ deciding stepladder final.

Singapore’s Fiona Yew settled for bronze after going down 176158 to Fion in the first stepladder match.

Prior to the stepladder final, Nurul Dini moved into pole position from third after the first block of eight games on Thursday, chalking up a total of 3,395 pinfalls yesterday.

Nurul Dini, who is the first Malaysian winner of the girls’ Masters event in 10 years – since Wan Nur Atiqqa Wan Mohd Yusof came out tops in the 2007 edition in Hong Kong – has yet to come to terms with her achievement.

This is her fourth gold medal at the championships, having also won the doubles with Gillian Lim, the team and the All-Events earlier in the week.

“I still can’t believe that I’ve won today (yesterday) because I came into this tournament not expecting much.

“Qualifying for the Masters final was already a huge achievement.

“I’d like to thank my coaches (Wendy Chai and Bong Kihow) for guiding me throughout the competition, my coach in Kedah (Helmy Shahrudin) and Johor ( Lamjah Khalil) and to my teammates for always standing by me.

“What I’ve learned from this tournament is to play your game and not to think too much,” said Nurul Dini, who is high on the radar of the Malaysian Tenpin Bowling Congress (MTBC) to make the national youth squad.

Malaysia emerged overall champions with six golds, six silvers and two bronzes.

Hong Kong finished second with a 2-1-1 haul, followed by Australia (1-2-0) and Indonesia (1-0-0).