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Agencies
Ashgabat
Qatar shocked hot favourites Republic of Korea 827-802 in the men's Team of Four bowling semi-final at the 2017 Ashgabat Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games on Tuesday.
The nail-biting contest saw both teams struggle to carry on the first ball, with Qatar leading from early in the game and fending off a last-minute surge from Republic of Korea, including ten strikes in a row in the eighth frame from Young Seon Cho.
Qatar had only squeaked into the semi-final by finishing fourth in Block 2 competition on Monday, just 48 pins ahead of Thailand.
"Right now I can't believe it," said Jassim Mohamed al Muraikhi, the youngest member of the Qatari team."Thank God we did our job.
"To beat the world champions is tough. We just tried to control our emotions and bowl our best," he added.
Republic of Korea had beaten Qatar by 332 points in the preliminary phase, but could not reproduce the performance when it really mattered.
In the other semi-final, Chinese Taipei beat Indonesia 784-730 to also advance to the final.
The results mean Republic of Korea and Indonesia both take bronze medals in the event.
Billy Muhammad Islam of Indonesia was clearly upset about not making the final, but did see the silver lining."I'm sad, I'm disappointed," he said.
"I made a lot of mistakes on the right lane, but it's good we got a medal in the team event.
"We made some late adjustments in the last few frames but I think we left it a bit late."
Qatar will face Chinese Taipei in the final at 10am on Wednesday, the final day of competition at Ashgabat 2017.
