Rollhouse Bowling Center in Ankara, Turkey (Sep. 5-13, 2009)

The 2009 Ankara Open got underway on Saturday with the first three of total 28 qualifying squads at Rollhouse Bowling Center in Ankara, Turkey. The first day of qualifying drew 53 players.

Adem Güran (pictured left), a well-know Turkish veteran and the coach of the Turkish Youth team, set the pace with 1298 and an average of 216.33 over six games. Long-time Turkish national team member, Habib Doğan (right), was second with 1295, followed by Şener Zan in third place with 1253.

Dane Lotte Houbo Pedersen was the top foreigner and the best woman in the field with 1240 including 48 pins handicap, a standard for women on the European Bowling Tour.

The Ankara Open is the 10th stop of the 2009 European Bowling Tour and one of the Tour's "Major" tournaments. As reported earlier, the Ankara Open has changed its EBT status from Premier to Major due to reduced prize money as a consequence of the global financial crisis.

The tournament offers total prize money of 70.000 Euro instead of 100.000. The winner will receive the 10.000 Euro top prize instead of 15.000.

Qualifying runs through Saturday, Sep. 12, and ends with the Desperado Squad on early Sunday morning. A total of 56 players will advance to the finals including the top 40 qualifiers, the top six players each from Squads 1-6 (Sept. 5&6) and Squads 7-12 (Sept. 7&8) and the top 4 from the Desperado Squad.

The top 8 qualifiers will earns three byes, places 9-16 receive two and places 17-24 will get one. The remaining 32 players advance to the first of four rounds over 4 games total pinfall starting from scratch.

Once the field is cut to 8 players the format will change to single-elimination match play in bracket format; each match over two games total pinfall. The field will be trimmed to four then two players, who will bowl for the title worth 10.000 Euro and 100 EBT ranking points.

 

 

Qualifying Standings after Squad 3