Dom Barrett, Bill O'Neill shoot 300 to lead men's qualifying at Bowling World Open

    07/11/15

    2015 World Bowling Tour #13

    33 bowlers from 14 countries advance to the semi-finals starting this evening at 8 p.m. JST

    2015BWOBillONeill2.jpg2015WBODomBarrett.jpgPBA champions Dominic Barrett (left) of England and Bill O'Neill (right), United States, rolled 300 games in the qualifying of the World Bowling Tour's Bowling World Open Saturday at Round1 Minamisuma bowling center in Tokyo, Japan, en route to lead the top 33 men into the semi-finals this evening at 8 p.m.

    Barrett, a 29-year-old right-hander who owns four PBA titles along with 10 European Bowling Tour titles, started the five game round on the "Tokyo" lane conditioning pattern with the tournament's first 300 game by a man (compared to four by women) and added games of 225, 201, 259 and 288 to pace the 110-player field from 52 countries with 1273 and an average of 254.60.

    2015BWOTommyJones2.jpg2015WBOIsaoYamamoto5.jpgMultiple World champion and six-time PBA titlist O'Neill, 33, started strong (266, 258) and overtook Barrett with 225 in game three before he slipped to sixth place due to a 185 in game four. The right-hander closed with the second perfecto of the day to regain second place with 1234 and an average of 246.80.

    Fellow Team USA member and former PBA Player of the Year, Tommy Jones (left), owner of 16 PBA titles, amassed a 1203 pinfall total (240.60) including three games in the 250s to take third place.

    Japan Professional Bowlers Association champion and former Japanese national team member Isao Yamamoto (above right) was the best Japanese bowler in the field in fourth place with 1184. Yamamoto led the field after three games with 757 (235, 257, 265) but slipped three spots after finishing with 212 and 215.

    2015SEAGRyanLalisang.jpg2014PBAJasonBelmonte.jpgJust outside the top four was Asian Games gold medalist Ryan Lalisang (left) of Indonesia, who toppled 1156 pins.

    Reigning two-time PBA Player of the Year Jason Belmonte (right), a two-handed player from Australia, was sandwiched between Japan's Ryota Ichihara (1147) and Kengo Tagata (1136) in seventh place with 1139.

    Fellow two-hander and four-time PBA champion Osku Palermaa was ninth with 1127 and multiple JPBA Player of the Year Shota Kawazoe (below left) rounded out the top 10 with 1126.

    2013JPBAShotaKawazoe.jpg2015EBT09ChrisSloan.jpg Irish two-hander Chris Sloan (right) took the 33rd and last spot to advance with 1048 or an average of 209.60. Fourteen out of 52 countries will be represented in the semi-finals which will take place simultaneously with the women starting at 8 p.m. Japan Standard Time (JST).

    The host country Japan (12), United States (5), Korea (4) and Australia (2) are the only countries who have multiple players in the men's Round of 33. Other countries represented are England, Canada, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Finland, Indonesia, Ireland, Philippines, South Africa and Venezuela.

    Photos courtesy of Max Bulanov and Hero Noda.

    2015WBOPoster.jpg 2015JBCLogo.jpg The inaugural Bowling World Open, the 13th event on the 2015 World Bowling Tour and one of the Tour's "major" tournaments, will be held from July 9-12 in Tokyo, Japan. The richest event on the 2015 WBT schedule offers total prize fund of 48 million Japanese Yen, currently 394,750 U.S. Dollar as of today.

    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. $82,240).

    The Japanese and the international preliminaries got underway on Thursday, July 9, at Round1 Minamisuma and Shinagawa Prince Hotel bowling centers in Tokyo, Japan.

    There were 110 spots in each division available for the qualifying of the main event which were filled with 20 players from the Japanese preliminaries, 20 players from the international preliminaries and 70 invited players.

    All players, who were invited by the organizers, skipped the preliminaries and were automatically seeded into the main tournament.

    The World Bowling Open main event featured 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.

    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 Bowling World Open - Men's Qualifying


    Top 33 advance to the semi-finals

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