Filipina chess players Janelle Mae Frayna and Shania Mae Mendoza have clinched a silver medal at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Cambodia with four wins and one loss in the knockout ladder preliminaries. The team tied on 3.5 points with Myanmar and Malaysia, making their seventh-round game against Pen Khemrareaksmey and Tep Sokratha superfluous. Grandmaster Jayson Gonzales, the National Chess Federation of the Philippines executive director, said they were guaranteed the silver medal even if there was a tie, as the first tie-break is the winner-over-the-other rule.
Frayna and Mendoza defeated Burmese Soe Moe Khaing and Su Su Hlaing in their opening game before also winning against Malaysians Chua Jia Ten and Nur Faicaq Aminuddin in the second, Sarocha Chuemsakul and Sirikan Charoen of Thailand in the third and Laos’ Houanchanmone Phonesavanh and Inthavong Maly in the fifth stage. Victory saw them draw the bye in the fourth, before they came down to earth with a bump with Vietnam’s Nu Hong An Ton and Than Phuong Thao Pham blanking them 0.5-1.5 in the sixth round.
The men’s side did not fare as well, with Asia’s first Grandmaster Eugene Torre and Joey Antonio taking a defeat from Vietnam’s Tam Hoang Nham and Quoc Dung Tran in the men’s triples 60-minute to 2.5-0.5. The only other game played by the Philippines came in the men’s tennis singles where Naing Myo Lin of Myanmar defeated National Master Edmundo Gatos.
The SEA Games began in Philippines’ Clark Freeport and Subic Bay and will run until 11 December, featuring 56 sports in 530 events across 44 venues. Filipino women bowlers, Kaitlin Cunanan and Lara Posadas, won the bronze medal in women’s doubles, the country’s first medal success in the sport’s competition, which was held at Coronado Lanes Bowling Centre.
