Last year, Ivonne and Thomas Gross, became the first couple to qualify for the World Ranking Masters. This year, the Austrians qualified to represent Austria in the 43rd QubicaAMF Bowling World Cup in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Ivonne and Thomas won the women's and men's division at Salzburg Summer Tournament & BWC Qualifier to earn the coveted tickets to the BWC to be held from November 3 through 11, 2007.

The tournament was contested at Star Bowling in Salzburg, Austria, a state-of-the-art bowling center, which opened its doors earlier this year. The old Star Bowling center was closed after the roof collapsed under heavy snow in the winter of 2006.
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The top 16 men from All Events (five games Singles plus five games Doubles) and all of the mere seven (!!) female participants qualified for finals to bowl for BWC tickets. The player with the highest pinfall total after nine games was declared the winner.

Ivonne (left) started out commandingly by rolling games of 224, 257, 225 and 223 and never looked back. She finished with 1828 pinfall total, an average of 203.11, to secure her fifth berth into the Bowling World Cup. Gabi Loos (1795) and Evelyn Tutschka (1785) came up strong but had to settle for second and third place, respectively.

Phillip Bauer led the men's field after five of nine games by 49 pins, but Thomas (right) closed out his series with 247, 279, 276 and 225 (1027) to seal the victory with 2107 pinfall total and an average of 234.11.

This will be the first World Cup participation in his career for Thomas Gross. Bauer finished second at 2065 with Adalbert Einböck in third at 1990.