MANILA - New Hui Fen won the SEA Games bowling women's masters title on Sunday (Dec 8) after pipping Malaysian Siti Safiyah Amirah in a tense final.

The 27-year-old Singaporean had 213 pinfalls to her opponent's 194.

Seeded top entering the stepladder finals, New needed to win the first game to secure the gold. But Safiyah won that game after two tiebreakers to force a second game.

The scores remained close, and while the Malaysian blinked first, New remained steady to clinch her second individual gold and third overall of the Philippines Games.

She won the women's singles and women's team events earlier this week.

New was emotional as she said: "It's really a dream come true... it has always been my goal to (finish) in the top five of every event and in this competition I was in the top five.

"I was fourth in the mixed doubles so that was my "worst" position, so I'm glad that I'm able to show everyone my consistency.

"I think the difference was she had splits and when I saw that she had split, I made the adjustment - I was ahead of my move and I didn't wait for things to happen.

"(In the tense moments) I was just reminding myself to firm up my non-bowling arm because whenever I'm bowling well I just focus on my left hand to make sure it's firm, because once that's firm then I get my direction and everything will be in place."