French Canadians David Simard and Jonathan Simoneau (pictured left, r-l) finished the second squad of Doubles with a big 493 game to crack the top 4 in the overall standings at the Men's World Championships Monday afternoon at Khalifa International Bowling Center in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Simard finished his 1352 series with 225 and Simoneau used a 268 final game for 1257 to overtake Korea's Hong Haesol and Kim Kyungmin by 25 pins to move into fourth place with 2609 total and an average of 217.42.

The top three teams of Squad 1 remained atop the leaderboard. With two out of four squads having completed the six-game preliminaries on the 38 ft. Atlanta pattern, the shorter pattern of the two pattern used during this championships, Kimmo Lehtonen and Joonas Jehkinen (above right, l-r) of Finland held on to the lead with 2729 and an average of 227.42.

Team USA's Bill O'Neill and Mike Fagan (left, l-r) remained in second place with 2667 (222.25) followed by Syafiq Ridhwan and Alex Liew (right, r-l) of Malaysia, who stayed in third place with 2662 (221.83).

The Koreans slipped out of the top 4, who will qualify for the medal round on Tuesday afternoon, to fifth place with 2584 with Denmark's Frederik Øhrgaard and Jimmy Mortensen in sixth place with 2570 and Singles silver medalist Shaker Al Hassan and Nayef Eqab Jabber, United Arab Emirates, in seventh place with 2558.

Trailing the Canadians by 52 pins in Squad 2 were England's John Wells and Richie Teece to sit in eighth place overall with 2557 (213.08). Third place in this squad belonged to 2010 World Champion in Doubles Martin Paulsson and teammate Joachim Karlsson of Sweden with 2549 (212.42), good for ninth place at the moment.

Top 3 Squad 2: L-R Teece, Wells, Simard, Simoneau, Karlsson and Paulsson. Click on the image to enlarge it.

With the 134 bowlers having completed 12 of 24 games in All-Events (combined scores in Singles, Doubles, Trios and Teams), Kimmo Lehtonen (left) is in the pole position with 2780 total and an average of 231.67.

World Champion in Singles, Dan MacLelland (right) of Canada, is 26 pins behind in second place with 2754 (229.50) and Gery Verbruggen of Belgium, who won gold in Singles and silver in Masters at the first World Championships in Abu Dhabi (1999), is third with 2690 (224.17).

Former World Games champion Manuel Otalora and Joachim Karlsson paced the bowlers of Squad 2 with 2650 and 2641, respectively, to position themselves in sixth and seventh place.

Doubles squad 3 will conclude Monday's preliminaries from 18.00 to 21.30 local time (GST). Squad 4 will follow on Tuesday morning starting at 9.00 after which the field will be cut to the top 4 who advance to the medal round slated to begin at 13.30.

No. 1 will bowl No. 4 and No. 2 meets No. 3 in a one-game semi-final match. The winners bowl for gold and silver while the losers share the bronze medal.