Yap to cut back on competition schedule

Sarah Yap plans to trim her busy competition schedule once she assumes the full-time national coaching duties of the Saipan Bowling Association, the organization tasked to developing CNMI national bowlers.

She said, right now she plays in 10 to 12 tournaments a year, but is looking at cutting that to three to four in 2006. She is due to arrive on Saipan this Saturday, Jan. 7, and is expected to immediately work with CNMI national bowlers and prepare them for this year’s Asian Inter-City Tenpin Bowling Tournament to be held on Guam.

Yap also believes she won’t have much trouble training for regional tournaments on Saipan, despite the island’s lack of ideal bowling facilities.

The 32-year-old right-hander said her having sound fundamentals would help her overcome what she says are the “poor lane conditions” found at both the Saipan Bowling Center and Capital Bowling Center.

A swimmer by training until the age of 15, Yap said she learned bowling from her uncle and at one time was so intrigued with the sport, she spent three months studying other bowlers and their varying techniques in a bowling alley in her native Malaysia.

Yap said she was fascinated that although there were different ways of rolling the ball, it still had the same result.

Until know, she believes she’s still has lots to learn from bowling and is hopeful that her stint with the SBA and coaching the CNMI national team and national youth team would be mutually beneficial.

When not coaching the national teams, Yap said she plans to go around the island and go hiking. In fact, during her short visit in October, she went to Forbidden Island. “Going down was not too difficult, but coming up was hard,” she said.

Yap also picked up tennis and took lessons from local champion Peter Loyola. She said she finds tennis very challenging and looks forward to learning and playing more of the sport when she relocates to the island this year.

Born in Perak, Malaysia, Yap’s bowling career is highlighted by wins in the 1997 Asian Bowling Tour Grand Slam (champion), 1998 AMF Bowling World Cup Las Vegas (third place), 2000 Asian Championship in Qatar (silver medal), 2001 Southeast Asian Games (team gold), 2002 Asian Championships in Hong Kong (team gold), 2002 Busan Asian Games (doubles gold), 2004 Philippines Open Masters Champion, 2005 Vietnamese Open, and the recent 2005 Guam International Open, where she beat Hong Kong’s Vanessa Fung for the gold.