The 9th annual Columbia 300 Vienna Open is the 17th stop of the 2011 European Bowling Tour and the last of six EBT "Gold" tournaments this season. The tournament will be held from Tuesday Sep. 27 through Sunday Oct. 2, 2011 at 32-lane Plus Bowling in Vienna, Austria.

The Vienna Open offers total prize fund of 70.630 Euro - 60.400 € for Singles and 10.230 € for the Doubles event. The singles champion will receive the 7.000 € top prize, the runner-up earns 5.000 and the third-place finisher gets 3.500 Euro. The doubles winners will split the 1.600 € top prize.

For the ninth year in a row, Bowlingdigital covers the Columbia 300 Vienna Open live from Plus Bowling in Vienna with stories and results after each round commencing Monday Sept. 27 with the no-tap tournament all the way through to the stepladder finals on Sunday Oct. 2.

The traditional 9-pin no-top tournament on Monday evening will kick off the five-day qualifying portion with free entries into the Vienna Open at stake. Players will be divided in four different average groups, but only players with less than a 200 average are eligible to enter the no-tap tournament.

As of today, 325 players - 276 men and 49 women - from 30 countries, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Catalonia, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United States, Wales, and the host country Austria, have registered fort one of the most popular tournaments in Europe.

Players looking for a spot and players looking for a doubles partner must show up 90 minutes prior to a squad at the registration desk or contact tournament director Wolfgang Lohschmid at [email protected].

The qualifying of the Vienna Open is traditionally contested as a Doubles tournament with separate prize money. 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. Pictured right (r-l): Osku Palermaa, Finland, and Tore Torgersen, Norway, who won the Doubles competition in 2010.

Qualifying runs from Tuesday through Saturday and concludes with Squad 17 Oct. 1st at 8 p.m. and ends with the ultimate one-game Desperado Squad on Saturday night slated for 11.30 p.m. CET. Women receive 8 pins handicap each game, a standard on the European Bowling Tour

A total of 64 players will qualify for the Vienna Open finals on Sunday, Oct. 2:

• the top 52 players from the overall qualifying standings
• the first player each from Squad 1-6, who is not among the top 52 (total 6 players)
• and the top 6 from the Desperado Squad.

The top 8 qualifying leaders will bypass the first round of the finals.

The other 56 players will bowl 6 games starting from scratch to cut to the top 22, who will join the top qualifiers in Round Two.

Those 30 players will bowl another 6 games starting from scratch after which the field will be trimmed to the top 18, who will carry their pinfall forward into Round Three. After another 6-game block the top 4 with the highest 12-game total will advance to the stepladder finals.

The No. 4 seed meets the No. 3 in the opening match and the winner takes on the No. 2 seed for the right to bowl the top seed for the title, 150 ranking points and the 7.000 Euro top prize.

Tournament Format
Prize Fund
Schedule