James Gruffman (pictured left) capped off an outstanding performance at the 35th European Champions Cup by defeating Yoan Alix (right) of France, two-games-to-none, to claim men's title Sunday afternoon at bowling center Dekker in Zoetermeer, Netherlands.

Gruffman, who led the 42-player field in all three rounds of preliminaries to earn the No. 1 seed for eight-player finals, swept all three opponents in best-of-three games format.

Each match was played on one pair of lanes with the left lane dressed with the long oil (40 ft.) and the right lane dressed with short oil (35 ft.). Each game was played on one lane. The higher seeded player had the advantage to decide where the first game was played. The second game was played on the other lane and an eventual third game was played on the same lane as the first game.

In the opening match, Gruffman topped No. 8 seed, Achim Grabowski of Germany, in the high-scoring first game, 261-247, and sealed the win with 205-170. In the semifinal round, Gruffman fired games of 279 and 258 to fly past No. 5 Habib Dogan (left) of Turkey.

Alix, seeded third after the preliminaries, fired games of 278 and 254 en route to eliminate No. 7 Gery Verbruggen of Belgium in the quarterfinals. His semifinal match against No. 2 seed, Raymond Teece (right) of England was decided in the third game.

Though the Englishman had the advantage to decide the starting lane, Alix won the first game and also the last, 236-204, to set up the title match with Gruffman. The Swede, who decided to start on long oil, easily won the game, 265-184, and sealed the victory with a 194-189 win on the short pattern.

Gruffman averaged 236.97 over 30 games, more than 22 pins higher than his nearest competitor. Alix finished in second place with Teece third and Dogan fourth.