12th October, Dubai: Second-seed and debutant Christopher Sloan of Ireland captured the Youth title beating top seed, Mustafa Al Mousawi of Kuwait twice in the Youth Stepladder Finals of the 5th Dubai International Open Bowling Tournament 2014.
Sloan had a nervy start with an open frame in the first match against Mustafa but he quickly recovered with three strikes-in-a-row to open up a huge gap over his opponent when the Kuwaiti had two open frames in the second and third.
The 20-year-old Irish took the first match 185-174 to force a second deciding match. Sloan again had an open frame in the first but kept his cool without further mistakes until the eighth frame which he failed to spare again while Mustafa could not string together any strikes.
The match was more or less decided when Mustafa missed a single-pin spare in the eighth. Sloan went on to take the match, 189-155 and his first-ever international title.
The champion represented Ireland in two World Youth Championships; one in 2012 in Bangkok and his second in Hong Kong this year where he qualified for the Masters only to finish in 19th position.
Sloan advanced to the title match after he edged, Juan Rafael Vargas of Philippines, 174-173 in the second stepladder match. The Filipino also edged third-seed, Ali Almas of Bahrain, 174-173 in the first match to face Sloan.
The champion picked up the top prize of AED. 20,000 for his victory while Mustafa settled for AED. 10,000. Vargas and Almas took home AED. 6,000 and 5,000 for finishing third and fourth respectively.
Meanwhile top seed, Samanthan Hannan of England won the Women’s title by defeating challenger, Uella Marcial of Philippines, 187/212 -228/159 in the final stepladder match. Marcial had earlier ousted Kholoud Akram of UAE, 245-178 to advance to the title match.
Kholoud advanced after she edged third-seed, Marivic Alfaro, 153-150 in the third match. Kholoud also defeated fifth-seed, Tracy Can Dyk of England and Liza Lugto of Philippines, 210-127-178 in the second match.
Lugto won the first match defeating seventh-seed Liza M Casto and eighth-seed Christine Ocampo, 167-152-145 in an all-Filipina first match.
Hannan earned 10,000 AED as champion with Marcial settling for 7,000 AED. Kholoud picked up 5,000 AED for finishing third while Alfaro, Van Dyk, Lugto, Castro and Ocampo went home with 3,500, 2,500, 2,000, 1,500 and 1,000 AED respectively.