Japanese bet barely misses perfect game

MANILA, Philippines - Japanese Tadashi Fujita narrowly missed scoring a perfect game Sunday night, settling for a 266 in the 39th Philippine International Open Tenpin Bowling Championships at the Paeng’s Midtown Bowl inside the Robinson’s Place in Ermita.

Competing in men’s senior division singles, Fujita, armed with a 15-pound Broken Arrow ball, had nine straight strikes in a row in the second game of his three-game series and looked poised to become the first bowler to score a perfect game on lanes 33 and 34.

But with play halted in the rest of the lanes and the gallery watching, the 57-year-old native of Shiga prefecture could only muster a split in the 10th frame of the second game of his three-game series en route to 266.

A perfect 300 is worth P50,000 courtesy of Amway in the bowling meet.

Coupled with a 213 in the first game and 203 in the third, Fujita, who has a 235 average, had a 682 card to go with an earlier 567 aggregate for a six-game output of 1,249, good enough to rank him sixth in the senior’s masters qualifiers.

MTBA’s Francis Manalaysay led the provisional standings in the men’s seniors division with a 1,310 card in the event sponsored by UPHS Dalta and Jonelta Systems, Pagcor Sports, DOT, PSC, PCSO, Amway, Timberpro and Colgate Palmolive.

PBA-PSB’s Steve Robles was second (1,298), Japanese Tomokazu Maeda third (1,285), LCTBA’s Lino Arroyo fourth (1,270), PTBA’s Par Pineda fifth (1,257), ATBA’s Jules Pedrajas seventh (1,224), SLETBA’s Lino Diamante eighth (1,212), PBA’s Nilo Penado ninth (1,212) and TBAM-Prima-UPHS’ Tony Ayson rounding up the top 10 (1,211).

In the ladies’ seniors qualifiers, PBA’s Marissa Campita was at the top (1,152), followed by PBC secretary general Bong Coo, carrying the colors of MBA-Timberpro-Prima, (1,142) in second, PBA’s Nelia Santos third (1,124), MBA’s Carmen Talosig fourth (1,110).

PBA’s Mila Robles fifth (1,098), PBA’s Lynn Tan sixth (1,093), MTBA’s Offie Marino (1,087), PTBA’s Letty Pineda eighth (1,078), MTBA’s Tess Eusebio ninth (1,063) and MBA-Timberpro’s Jingay Farcuri (1,063).

Coo said that most of the foreign players from Indonesia, Australia and Hong Kong are scheduled to arrive starting today in the event sanctioned both by the World Tenpin Bowling Association and the Asian Bowling Federation.

The kegfest also serves as part of selecting the Philippine team that will compete in the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China in November.