Two members of the German youth national team, Pascal Winterheimer and Lars Tangermann (l-r), ended the penultimate qualifying day in the 6th Columbia 300 Vienna Open Friday night with a bang when the duo finished with 2744 pins en route to overtake the lead in the Double event.

Winterheimer, 20, led the duo with 1411 and Tangermann, 21, contributed 1333 to beat Australian Jason Belmonte and Peter Ljung from Sweden for the top spot by 12 pins.

Winterheimer, who started his six-game series with 252, 256 and 265, moved into sixth place in the overall qualifying standings. Jason Belmonte held on to the lead with 1517 (252.83) and is followed by defending champion Dennis Eklund, Sweden, with 1485 and Chris Vandamme, Belgium, with 1427.

European Masters champion Nina Flack (right), Sweden, was mere 14 pins behind Winterheimer with 1397 including 48 pins handicap, a standard for women on the European Bowling Tour, to become the top-ranked woman in Vienna in 7th place.

The Vienna Open, the 14th stop of the 2008 European Bowling Tour and one of the Tour's "Major", will be held from Sep. 30 - Oct. 5, in Vienna, Austria.

More than 290 players will compete for total prize money of 65.630 Euro - 55.400 € in Singles and 10.230 € in Doubles. The singles champion will receive the 6.000 € top prize while the doubles winners will split 1.600 €.

In last year's title match, Swede Dennis Eklund (pictured right) defeated Yoan Alix, France, 235-199, en route to win his first EBT title. Tina Hulsch, Germany, won the women's rankings.

Once again the qualifying for the Vienna Open finals is contested as a doubles tournament. Each duo rolls at least one six-game block. Unlimited re-entries with different partners are possible but each player can only cash once with the same partner.

The team with the highest total pinfall including handicap will be declared the winner (no finals will be played). The top 20 doubles will cash.

Stuart Williams, England, and Germany's Tina Hulsch are the defending champions (pictured left).

Qualifying runs from Tuesday through Saturday and ends with the ultimate one-game Desperado Squad on Saturday night Oct. 4 slated for 11.30 pm local time (GMT +1).


A total of 64 players from the qualifying will advance to the finals starting on Sunday, Oct. 5 at 8am:

The top 8 players with the highest six-game qualifying result will earn one bye and will be seeded 1-8 in the match play Round of 32

players positioned 9th to 52nd after qualifying

the six leaders of Squads 1-6 and

the top 6 from the Desperado Squad.

All but the top 8 qualifiers (56 players overall) will bowl 6 games starting from scratch to cut to the top 24. Those 24 will be seeded 9-32 in the match play Round of 32.

The Round of 32, 16 and 8 will feature single-elimination match play in best-of-three games format. The highest seeded player bowls the lowest seeded player, the second-highest seeded player vs. the second-lowest seeded player, etc.

The semifinals (No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3) and the championship match will be decided in one game. A major on the European Bowling Tour, the top 50 men and the top 50 women will receive double ranking points.

For more information on the 6th Columbia 300 Vienna Open click here.