KUALA LUMPUR: Relative newcomer Tan Jenn Ming aka Ming Tan won his first international darts title when he bagged the Men’s Singles at the recently concluded PDD Malaysia Masters 2023 last Sunday, taking home RM2,000 in cash.
Tan beat defending champion Zulrizan Azdan in a closely contested final after causing an upset when he beat the favoured Mohd. Nasir bin Jantan in the singles semifinals.
Tan and partner Nasir (Team Highton) came up short in the Men’s Doubles when they lost in the finals to Dury 5, represented by Norhisame Atan and Thomat Darus.
Nasir was initially tipped to win both, Men’s Singles and Doubles events, after his recent exploits in winning two titles at the PDC Asian Tour in Singapore earlier this month but had to settle for third and second place respectively.
Tan, who previously won the Selangor Open in 2022, had an outstanding tournament as he managed to hit a three-dart maximum of 180 points an amazing 12 times over the course of two days.
“I didn’t expect to do this well in this tournament but thanks to the support of my partner Nasir, I managed to reach both finals.
“It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t make it two out of two but this will certainly motivate me to work harder at my game and hopefully more titles will follow,” said Tan.
The PDD Malaysia Masters is in its second year and is one of the initiatives of PDD (Professional Darts Developer) to provide more avenues for Malaysian darters to compete against top darters from the Asia Pacific region.
PDD is also currently involved in organising the PDD Malaysia Cup, which is a series of state Opens that provide ranking points for participants to represent their home state in a national final to be held in early December.
“Our objective is to professionalise the sport, making it viable for Malaysian darters to make a living from playing darts, or at the very least supplement their income for now.
“Since darts has finally been gazetted as an official sport by the Youth and Sports Ministry, we hope to try to bring in more sponsors and money into the tournaments we organise so that our local darters can compete and excel against some of the best darters in the region,” said K. Saegaran, one of the founders of PDD along with Pathma CR.
“We have the talent, as can be seen from Nasir’s recent wins at the PDC Asian Tour, but our darters need more international exposure and for that we need to have the necessary funds,” he added.
The PDD Malaysia Masters also featured Women’s Singles and Doubles Events, which saw a similar feat as in the Men’s events when NurFahizan bt Zaini lost the singles finals to Jacqueline Augustine but bagged the doubles title after she and team mate Wahida Abd Wahid from KLPPDC beat Aurora in the finals. The event featured a high quality of play from participants with 70 perfect three-dart scores of 180 recorded throughout the tournament along with 7 bull checkouts.
