The field is down to 16 in the 1st Maribor Open Strike Tournament at Strike Bowling Center in Maribor, Slovenia. From now on the pinfall will be carried forward until the top four players for the Live TV Finals (starting at 6 p.m.) will be determined.

World Ranking Masters champion Stuart Williams (on the right), England, finished the third round with 280 to jump to the top of the leaderboard with 723 three-game total and an average of 241. His compatriot Nick Froggatt (left) is mere two pins behind in second place with 721.

Jari Ratia, who made the cut to Round 3 due to the higher last game, is tied with Froggatt at 721 but has the lower last game, 232-259, to sit in third place. Places 4-6 belong to Swedes Erik Andersin (720), Pär Svensson (715) and Kim Bolleby (704).

Martin Larsen, Sweden (10th, 693), Pasi Uotila, Finland (12th, 678) and Paul Moor, England (14th, 660), three of the favorites are still in the race for he title but have to make up some ground in the next rounds.

Uwe Tscharke, Germany, and Thomas "Dynamite Harry" Tybl (right), Austria, hit the cutoff number with 656.

Tscharke beat Tybl (right picture, on the left) for 15th place due to the higher last game, 247-245. Tybl had four-pin cushion over former European Champion Jouko Kuossari, Finland, to grab the 16th and final qualifying post.

His team mate Thomas Gross (right) missed the cut in 23rd place with 627. Tybl and Gross won the gold medal in Doubles at the 2007 European Championships.

The last Slovenian bowler, Tomaz Krizaj, went out of the tournament in 27th place with 597. The 64-year-old was second in Round 1 with 684 and 7th in Round 2 with 688. He started this series with a 170-game but rebounded with 249 and 269 to make it into the third round. Flavio Cuva has taped some frames of the remarkable come back.

A total of 56 players qualified for the finals of the 1st Maribor Open Strike Tournament on Sunday, Sep. 16 at Strike Bowling Center in Maribor, Slovenia: The top 52 in the overall qualifying standings and the top 4 Desperados.

Qualifiers 1-14 earned two byes, while qualifiers 15-28 bypassed the first round. The top 14 from Final Round One advanced and met qualifiers 15-28 in Final Round Two. The top 14 after another three games from scratch qualified for Round 3 to bowl against the top 14 qualifiers.

The pinfall from Round 3 will be carried forward. The field is trimmed to 16, then 8 and 4 (all rounds over three games). The four remaining players bowl for the title and the 8.000 Euro top prize in a traditional stepladder format based on the standings after Round 5.

Bowlingdigital will cover the event live from Maribor all the way through to the finals on Sunday, September 16. The four-player stepladder finals will be broadcasted live on Slovenian television in a two-hour show from Strike Bowling Center.