Swedes dominate qualifying in 6th Istanbul Bowling Open

    04/05/09

    2009 European Bowling Tour #5

    Leandersson shoots two perfect games on Friday

    2009EBT05TomasLeandersson.jpgOutstanding performance by Swedish bowlers in the qualifying of the 6th Istanbul Bowling Open Friday at Timeout Bowling Center in Istanbul, Turkey.

    2009EBT05MartinPaulsson_small.jpgSwedes Martin Paulsson (Squad 13, 1415), Robert Andersson (Squad 14, 1472), Tomas Leandersson (Squad 15, 1392) and Mathias Arup (Squad 16, 1344) led all four qualifying squads on Friday.

    Leandersson (pictured above), who has won numerous gold medals on World and European level, highlighted the day with two perfect games. The first came in Squad 13 (1330) and the second in Squad 15 (1392, 9th) for the "people who didn’t see his first 300" commented Tournament Director Recep Çınar.

    2008EBT06RobertAndersson_small.jpgAndersson (right) used games of 257, 239, 255, 229, 258 and 234 to overtake the overall qualifying lead with an average of 245.33 over six games. Previous leader Peter Norderson, Sweden slipped to second with 1441.

    2009KOMartinLarsen3_small.jpgThird place belongs to another Swede, Martin Larsen (left), fresh off the victory in the Kuwait Open, who totaled 1440. Andersson and Larsen won the gold medal in Doubles in the 2006 Men's World Championship in Korea.

    2009EBT04VeronicaLantto2_small.jpgPaulsson is sixth with 1415, Swedish international Peter Ljung is 8th with 1405 and Leandersson 9th. And finally, Veronica Lantto (right), also from Sweden, is the top female competitor in 12th place with 1373 including 48 pins handicap, a standard for women on the European Bowling Tour.

    World Ranking Masters champion Jari Ratia, Finland, is the best non-Swedish bowler in fourth place with 1420 followed by Tore Torgersen, Norway in fifth with 1418. Two-time defending EBT ranking champion Osku Palermaa sits in 7th place with 1407.

    Rounding out the top 10 is the best non-Scandinavian bowler, Nick Froggatt, England with 1381. Long-time Turkish international, Habib Dogan is the top local bowler in 18th place with 1346.

    The 6th Istanbul Bowling Open is the fifth stop of the 2009 European Bowling Tour and one of the Tour's Majors. The total prize fund is 68,000 Euro with 10.000 going to the winner. Lasse Lintilä, Finland, is the defending champion.

    Qualifying will run through Saturday, April 4, with the final qualifying squad 20 scheduled for 8pm. Qualifying will conclude with the ultimate one-game Desperado Squad.

    A total of 48 players - the top 42 players from the qualifying plus the top 6 from the Desperado Squad - will advance to the finals on Sunday, April 5.

    The top 8 will earn three byes, players seeded 9-18 will receive two byes and players seeded 19-28 will bypass the first round of the finals.

    The first five rounds consist of four games starting from scratch. The field will be trimmed to 38, 28, 18, 8 and then four who will advance to the semifinals (Round 6). Those four determine the finalists in one-game matches (No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3). The winners will bowl for the title and the 10.000 € top prize.

     


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