None of the players in Squad 6 on Wednesday evening made it among the top six after two days of qualifying in the 6th Columbia 300 Vienna Open currently underway at Plus Bowling in Vienna, Austria.

Austria's No. 1, Thomas Gross, led Squad 6 but missed the top six by three pins. The co-owner of the "The Bowling Store" pro-shop at Plus Bowling had to settle for 7th place in the overall qualifying standings with 1274 pinfall total.

Uwe Tscharke, Germany and Michael Mayer, Austria remained in the lead in the Doubles event with 2658 six-game total and an average of 221.50.

The six winner of Squad 1-6, who are automatically qualified are:
Squad 1: Walter Rieger, Austria, 1254
Squad 2: Michael Loos, Austria, 1346
Squad 3: Alexander Rauscher, Austria, 1367
Squad 4: Uwe Tscharke, Germany, 1332
Squad 5: Frederik Ohrgaard, Denmark, 1277
Squad 6: Thomas Gross, Austria, 1274

In case that one of these players will qualify for the final steps through positions 1-52 in the overall qualifying standings, the next positioned player in the respective squad will qualify.

The Vienna Open, the 14th stop of the 2008 European Bowling Tour and one of the Tour's "Major", will be held from Sep. 30 - Oct. 5, in Vienna, Austria.

More than 290 players will compete for total prize money of 65.630 Euro - 55.400 € in Singles and 10.230 € in Doubles. The singles champion will receive the 6.000 € top prize while the doubles winners will split 1.600 €.

Once again the qualifying for the Vienna Open finals is contested as a doubles tournament. Each duo rolls at least one six-game block. Unlimited re-entries with different partners are possible but each player can only cash once with the same partner.

The team with the highest total pinfall including handicap will be declared the winner (no finals will be played). The top 20 doubles will cash. Stuart Williams, England, and Germany's Tina Hulsch are the defending champions.

Qualifying runs from Tuesday through Saturday and ends with the ultimate one-game Desperado Squad on Saturday night Oct. 4 slated for 11.30 pm local time (GMT +1).

A total of 64 players from the qualifying will advance to the finals starting on Sunday, Oct. 5 at 8am:

• The top 8 players with the highest six-game qualifying result will earn one bye and will be seeded 1-8 in the match play Round of 32
• players positioned 9th to 52nd after qualifying
• the six leaders of Squads 1-6 and
• the top 6 from the Desperado Squad.

All but the top 8 qualifiers (60 players overall) will bowl 6 games starting from scratch to cut to the top 24. Those 24 will be seeded 9-32 in the match play Round of 32.

The Round of 32, 16 and 8 will feature single-elimination match play in best-of-three games format. The highest seeded player bowls the lowest seeded player, the second-highest seeded player vs. the second-lowest seeded player, etc.

The semifinals (No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3) and the championship match will be decided in one game. A major on the European Bowling Tour, the top 50 men and the top 50 women will receive double ranking points.

For more information on the 6th Columbia 300 Vienna Open click here.