Stathatos, Penny win men's and women's European Champions Cup

    09/27/09

    2009 ECC

    Mega Place Bowling Club in Chania, Crete, Greece (Sept. 21-28, 2009)

    2009ECCLogo_small.jpg Giannis Stathatos, from the host country Greece and England's Kirsten Penny captured the men' and women's title in the 32nd European Champions Cup Sunday at Mega Place Bowling Club in Chania, Crete, Greece. Penny followed in the footprints of team mate Zara Glover and won the second consecutive women's ECC title for England when she swept top seeded Ann Louise Haugen Andersen, Norway, in the title match, two-games-to-none.

    The multiple European and World champion won the first game 238-216 and secured the gold medal with a 225-209 win in game #2. Haugen earned the silver medal.

    Stathatos, who barely made the cut to the top 8 after firing a 278 in the 24th and final game of the preliminaries went the distance against Germany's Michael Krämer and emerged victorious, two-games-to-one.

    Krämer won a low-scoring first game, 199-168, but Stathatos leveled the match with a 221-194 win in game #2. Both players were unable to double in the first half of the deciding third game, but Stathatos held a 12-pin lead due to an open frame in the fifth by Krämer.

    Stathatos went off the sheet to put the game and the match away, 247-205. Krämer had to settle for the silver medal.

    The top 8 men and the top 8 women from the preliminaries determined the medalist of the 32nd European Champions Cup in single-elimination final in best-of-three games format. In each round the highest seeded player bowled the lowest seeded player based on the standings after the preliminaries. Four countries, Austria, England, Germany and Greece had both players - man and woman - in the finals.

    In the quarterfinals, both top seeds, Martin Larsen from Sweden and Haugen, swept their opponents while the No. 2, 3 and 4 seeds in both divisions were eliminated. Germany was the only country which had both players in the semis.

    Haugen carried the momentum into the semifinal against No. 7 Ghislaine van der Tol, as she swept the Dutch lefty, 2-0, including a 287 in game #2. Larsen fell to local favorite Stathatos, 2-1. Stathatos, seeded 7th, came back from a 1-0 deficit to win the next two games with scores of 279 and 278.

    In the two other semifinal matches the #5 seeds defeated the #6 seeds, two-games-to-one. Krämer defeated Arturs Levikins, Latvia in the decider, 199-189, and Penny sidelined Birgit Pöppler, Germany, with a 205-198 in game #3.

    Larsen and Pöppler finished third and Levikins and Van Der Tol finished fourth but all shared the bronze medal.

    The ECC featured the national champions or ranking leaders - one man and one woman per country - plus defending champions Thomas Gross, Austria, and Zara Glover, England. All players bowled three 8-game blocks (a total of 24 games) preliminaries over three days: Block 1 on short oil, Block 2 on long oil and Block 3 on dual lane condition (one lane short, the other lane long). The top 8 players after the preliminaries qualified for finals.

     


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    32nd European Champions Cup - Men's Single-elimination Finals


    Final Standings:
    1. Giannis Stathatos, Greece
    2. Michael Krämer, Germany
    3. Martin Larsen, Sweden
    4. Arturs Levikins, Latvia
    5. Alexander Rauscher, Austria
    6. Lluis Montfort, Catalonia
    7. Ryan Press, Northern Ireland
    8. Darren Cundy, England

     



    32nd European Champions Cup - Women's Single-elimination Finals


    Final Standings:
    1. Kirsten Penny, England
    2. Ann Louise Haugen Andersen, Norway
    3. Birgit Pöppler, Germany
    4. Ghislaine Van Der Tol, Netherlands
    5. Sara Mizrahi, Israel
    6. Reija Lunden, Finland
    7. Natassa Rovithaki, Greece
    8. Ivonne Gross, Austria

     

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