World Bowling Tour commences with inaugural Bowling World Open in Tokyo, Japan

    07/08/15

    2015 WBT #13

    WBT "major" tournament offers 48 million Yen (currently 391,700 USD); Bowlingdigital presents a list of invited players who will be seeded in the main event

     

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    2015WBOPoster.jpg Japan's capital city of Tokyo will be the center of the bowling world July 9-12, when many of the best bowlers in the world, men and women, will compete in the inaugural Bowling World Open for total prize fund of 48 million Japanese Yen, currently 391,700 U.S. Dollar.

    Men and women will compete in separate divisions for the same amount of prize money (24 million Yen each) using the same format. The men's and women's champion will walk away with the 10 million Yen top prize (approx. $81,600).

    The BWO is the 13th event on the 2015 World Bowling Tour and one of the Tour's "major" tournaments which award double ranking points. The BWO is the richest event on the 2015 WBT schedule.

    There are 110 spots in each division available for the qualifying of the main event which will be filled with the top 20 of the international preliminaries, the top 12 of the local preliminaries and maximum 78 invited players.

    Bowlingdigital has received the latest list of the invited players, who will skip the preliminaries and will be automatically seeded into the main tournament. The invitees represent 55 countries and two professional organizations, Professional Bowlers Association (USA) and KPBA (Korea). Scroll down this page to view the complete list as of July 7, 2015.

    The main event features five games of qualifying with the top 33 advancing to the semifinals. All pinfall carries over into the three-game round after which the field will be trimmed to the top 4 men and the top 4 women who will proceed to the TV Finals in single-elimination match play format.

    The top seeded player after eight games will bowl the No. 4 seed and the second-seeded player takes on the No. 3 seed. The winners will bowl for the title.

    The Bowling World Open treats men and women equally with 10 million Yen top prize (approx. $81,600) each going to the men's and women's winner. The first runner-up receives 5 million Yen (approx. $40,800) and the losers of the opening matches will finish tied for third place, worth 1.5 million Yen apiece (approx. $12.240).

    MakuhariMesseTokyoJapan.jpg The international preliminaries will be held at Shinagawa Prince Hotel bowling center Thursday and Friday, July 9 & 10. The qualifying round of the main event and the semifinals will follow Saturday, July 11, at Round1 Minamisuma bowling center, which will also host the local preliminaries.

    The finals (to be broadcasted by TV Tokyo) will be conducted on Sunday, July 12, in a special six-lane bowling arena installed in an exhibition hall at Makuhari-Messe, a convention center outside Tokyo (pictured right).

    The Organizing Committee has chosen the 43-foot Tokyo oil pattern, one of the long patterns from the World Bowling bank of patterns. The Tokyo pattern will be used in all three tournament venues.

    In addition the OC has announced that bowlers can register maximum six bowling balls during the whole tournament and cannot change or add balls. Only registered balls are allowed.

    For the latest information, please click here or on the tournament logo on the right bar.

    Preliminary Information (subject to change)
    Tournament Information
    Technical Information
    Prize Fund
    Schedule
    International Preliminaries

    WBTLogo_small.jpg The 2015 World Bowling Tour, which actually got underway in November 2014, currently consists of 20 tournaments in the Middle East (8), United States (7), Asia (3) and Europe (2) including eight "majors" and 12 regular tournaments.

    Players earn ranking points based on how they finish in each event. The current points system is based on a continuous two-year cycle, so some points earned in 2013 and all points from the 2014 and 2015 are added to determine the points list.

    The top three men and top three women in the WBT points list will be invited to compete in the 2015 World Bowling Tour Finals in the beginning of 2016.

    World Bowling provides governance to international bowling and is made up of 134 bowling international federations. For more information on the World Bowling Tour, click here.

     


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    2015 World Bowling Open - List of invited players as of July 7, 2015

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