Brian Voss atop the leaderboard in the 6th QubicaAMF Open

    04/21/12

    2012 European Bowling Tour #6

    PBA Hall of Famer rolls 1439 series to lead 110-player field into the final qualifying day; cut for 30th place improved by 84 pins on Friday to 1286 (214.33)

    2012EBT06FrederikOhrgaard.jpg2012EBT06BrianVoss2.jpgPBA Hall of Famer Brian Voss (pictured left), United States, posted a 1439 six-game series, an average of 239.83, in the eighth qualifying squad en route to move to the top of the 110-player leaderboard in the QubicaAMF Open in Slovenia.

    The 25-time PBA champion and past Player of the Year, who targets to win his fourth European Bowling Tour title, fired games of 253, 267, 236, 204, 256 and 223 Friday afternoon at Gladiator Arena in Ljubljana to beat out Frederik Øhrgaard (right) of Denmark for the top spot by two pins. The qualifying winner will receive a 1.000 Euro bonus.

    2012EBT04ThomasLarsen2.jpg2012EBT06MattiasOlsson.jpgØhrgaard slipped to second place with 1437. Squad 1 leader Michael Loos, Austria, is the only other player so far, who cracked the 1400-mark to sit in third place with 1424. Places four and five belonged to Thomas Gross, Austria, and Latvian two-hander Daniel Vezis, who both had a 300 game and a 1393 series.

    Thomas Larsen (left) was second to Voss in Squad 8 and improved his previous high series of 1386 series by six pins. However, the Dane fell to sixth place with 1292. Swede Mattias Olsson (right) led Squad 7 with 1386 (231 avg.) including games of 279, 202, 228, 232, 248 and 197, to take over seventh place.

    2012EBT04DirkVolkel.jpg2011EBT17AlexanderMedveditskov.jpgDirk Völkel (left), Germany, was 15 pins behind Larsen en route to tie Russia's Alexander Medveditskov (right) at 1377. Medveditskov took eighth place and Völkel ninth due to the higher last game, 277 to 256 in Medveditskov's favor.

    Despite finishing with a 169 game, eleven-time EBT champion and three-time PBA titlist, Osku Palermaa of Finland was second to Olsson in Squad 7 with 1376, good for tenth place overall. The two-handed specialist had high games of 288 and 277.

    2012EBT06AnzeGrabrijan.jpg2012EBT06PaulStott.jpgAnže Grabrijan (left) is still the top Slovenian bowler in the field but fell to 11th place with 1368. Ivonne Gross, Austria, who rolled the second of three 300 games in the tournament and the lone by a woman, continued to lead the women's ranking with 1364 including 48 pins handicap, good for 13th place.

    Paul Stott Jr. (right) paced Squad 9 on Friday evening with 1340 to leap into 15th place. The Irishman had high games of 258 and 244. Heading into the final day of qualifying, Roman Fürbacher (below right) of Austria is the "man on the bubble" in 30th place with 1286 and an average of 214.33.

    2011EBT17RomanFurbacher.jpgQualifying continues on Saturday, April 21, with Squad 10-12 scheduled for 10 a.m., 2 and 6 p.m. local time (CEST) and concludes with the one-game Desperado Squad immediately following the last qualifying squad.

    2012QAMFOpenLogo_small.jpg The 6th QubicaAMF Open 2012 is the sixth stop of the 2012 European Bowling Tour and the second out of eight EBT "Silver" tournaments this season. The tournament will be held from April 17-22 at 28-lane bowling center Gladiator Arena in Ljubljana, Slovenia and offers total prize fund of 43.300 Euro with 6.000 Euro going to the winner, 3.000 Euro to the runner-up and 2.000 and 1.800 Euro to the third and fourth place finisher, respectively.

    Qualifying of the sixth QubicaAMF Open runs from Tuesday April 17 through Saturday, April 21 with the final qualifying Squad 12 scheduled for 6 p.m. CEST. Qualifying will conclude with the one-game Desperado Squad slated for 9 p.m.

    A total of 40 players will qualify for the finals on Sunday, April 22, including the top 30 players from the overall qualifying standings, the top six players from the combined standings of the first three days (Squads 1-6; Tuesday through Thursday) which are not among the top 30 plus the top 4 players from the Desperado Squad. The top 10 qualifiers will receive two byes, while qualifiers 11-20 will bypass the first round of the finals.

    Each of the four rounds in the finals consists of four games. The field will be trimmed to 30, 20, 10 and then four players. Rounds 1, 2 and 3 start from scratch. The pinfall total from Round 3 will be carried forward into Round 4. In a change for 2012, only the top 4 players based on the highest eight-game total will advance to the stepladder final.

    The one-game playoffs begin Sunday at 5.30 p.m. In the opening match, the No. 4 seed meets No. 3 with the winner taking on No. 2. The winner of that match bowls the top-seeded player for the title, the 6.000 Euro top prize and 100 ranking points.

    2012EBTLogo_small.jpg The 2012 European Bowling Tour is made up of 21 events in 16 countries including two Platinum, four Gold, eight Silver and seven Satellite tournaments.

    The top 50 men and the top 50 women in each event earn ranking points based on how they finish in the event. The winner of a Platinum tournament receives 250 ranking points, the winner of a Gold tournament gets 150, the winner of a Silver tournament such as the QubicaAMF Open earns 100, and the winner of a Satellite tournament gets 50 ranking points.

    Those points will be tabulated throughout the season to determine the top 16 men and top 16 women who will compete in the sixth EBT Masters in Bratislava, Slovakia in Sept. 2013.

    Photos by Gorazd Kavčič

     


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    Qualifying Standings after Squad 9/12


    Places 31-36 show the current top six from the separate leaderboard of Squad 1-6