Diana waves her magic wand

The pins are falling as if Nur Diana Hussin has a magic wand to make it happen.

 On Thursday, close to midnight, Kuala Lumpur’s Nur Diana, fired the first perfect game in both the Interstate and currently going on Malaysian National championship, in her Girls Open qualifying block for the Masters.

 In the Interstate championship that ended on Wednesday, Nur Diana had bagged the three gold medals in the singles, doubles and All-events.

 Although, Nur Diana, had already qualified for the Open Masters automatically as Girls Open All-Events, she had bowled in the qualifiers as part of her practice for the final today.

 It was in her third game of the four games that she fired the magical 300. She earlier had lines of 239, 238 and after the 300, she probably was overwhelmed by the feat and fired a 191 in her final game for a 968 total and an average of 242. The total stands as the highest in the Girls Open qualifier.

 “I am totally shocked to have fired the 300. It is my first 300 since I started bowling four years ago,” said a delighted Nur Diana who will turn 19 on Aug 22.

 “It just all happened. I had strikes after strikes and the next thing I knew, I had achieved my career first 300,” said Nur Diana who won the Canon Legria FS200 Cam Recorder, which was the Perfect Game Award.

 “I am still trying to bring myself to believe that I have fired a 300. This is all happening too fast. In the Interstate I won three gold medals and now the perfect game.”

Will Nur Diana make it a memorable outing by bagging the Girls Open Master title too today?

“The pressure is on me now, but I am just going to take one game at time and hope for the best. If I am in the race for the title, then it will be great. But I intend to be among the top finishers because my national youth place is at stake.”

Nur Diana explained that she had not been performing well last year as a National Youth squad member and she was on the chopping block for this year.

 She had to perform in the Interstate to earn a place to play in the roll-off on tomorrow to try keeping her place for 2010.

“It was that prospect that saw me buck up and perform to keep my place. I am glad that I did well and hope I w. Another good performance tomorrow (today), will certainly put me in a good position and that’s what I intend to do,” said the college student of Advanced Management and Technology Centre (Pusat Technologi dan Urusan Lanjutan) in Shah Alam.

Nur Diana this morning will have for company in the race for the title, her fellow national youth teammates from last year, KL’s Hee Kar Yen, Sarawak’s Jacqueline Jenelee and Dayang Khairuniza, Perlis Hurul Ainul Abd Razak and Negri Sembilan’s Adlin Nadhirah.

She will also face competition from KL’s Radin Nur Najwa Arifah, who is currently leading in the qualifiers with her 911, as Nur Diana is an automatic qualifier.

Then there is Nurfidza Amran from Sarawak – the Girls Graded Masters runner-up - who is eighth placed in the 16 qualifiers.

An interesting battle is indeed on the cards this morning.

In the Boys Open Masters final, Sabah’s Mohammad Ozzer Othaman, who the doubles and All-events and a silver in the singles, will definitely start as favourite to wrest the title and put himself in line for a roll-off for a place in the National Youth squad.

He will have to contend for the title with last year’s National Youth bowlers like Syimir Abdul Razak, Khoo Beng Khai, Muhammad Amirrul Afif, Aris Ardila, Faliq Aimran and Jonathan Chan.

It is a tough field and with youngsters like Melaka’s Jason Syow and SportsExcel GP winner Chong Jun Foo all lined up, indications are that it will be an open race.