Asgeir Thordarson from Iceland rolled the first 300 game in the 1st Maribor Open Strike Tournament and the third overall since Strike Bowling Center in Maribor, Slovenia, opened its doors in April 2006.

Thordarson started his series with 195 and 224 before he rolled his fourth career perfecto in the third game of qualifying Squad 21 on lanes 11/12 in the state-of-the-art 16-lane center.

Thordarson (right) finished with 226, 156 and 175 to check in with 1276, an average of 212.67, the 9th highest series of the squad, good for 30th place in the overall qualifying standings.

Former European champion Jouni Helminen (left), currently the president of the Finnish Bowling Federation, checked in with the highest six-game series of Squad 21, 1355, to move into 8th place overall.

Five more players cracked the 1300-bar: Robert Andersson, Sweden (1350, 10th place), Jarno Ahokas, Finland (1344, 11th), Claudio Ajola, Italy (1330, 15th), Dennis Eklund, Sweden (1325, 17th) and Nico D'Achille, Italy (1304, 24th).



Martin Larsen's 1512 series, a 252.00 average, remained unchallenged. The Swede (pictured left) leads compatriot Tony Fransson (1472) by 40 pins.

Third place belongs to Pasi Uotila (right), Finland, with 1467. Next are Stuart Williams, England (1448) and Thomas "Dynamite Harry" Tybl, Austria (1431).

Qualifying continues on until Saturday evening and concludes with the one-game Desperado Squad around Midnight. A total of 56 players will qualify for the finals on Sunday, Sep. 16: The top 52 in the overall qualifying standings and the top 4 Desperados.

Qualifiers 1-14 will earn two byes (cut is currently 1333), while qualifiers 15-28 (cut is now 1279) will bypass the first round only. Players seeded 29-52 (cut after Squad 21 is 1172) will bowl 3 games starting from scratch The top 14 will qualify for the second round and meet qualifiers 15-28. The top 14 after another 3-game set from scratch meet the top 14 qualifiers in Round #3.

The field will be trimmed to 16, 8 and then 4 in Rounds 3 to 5 (same format as before). The four remaining players will bowl for the title and the 8.000 Euro top prize in a traditional stepladder format based on the standings after Round #5: No. 4 bowls No. 3, the winner meets No. 2 and the winner bowls No. 1 for the title.

Bowlingdigital will cover the event live from Maribor all the way through to the finals on Sunday, September 16. The four-player stepladder finals will be broadcasted live on Slovenian television in a two-hour show from Strike Bowling Center.