Malaysian bowlers set the tone in Ankara Open qualifying

    09/10/09

    2009 European Bowling Tour #10

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

    2009EBT10AaronKong.jpg2009EBT10AdrianAng.jpgFive Malaysian bowlers cracked the top 8 in qualifying of the 2009 Ankara Open Wednesday at Rollhouse Bowling Center in Ankara, Turkey. Aaron Kong (pictured left) started his six-game block with back-to-back 250 and finished with a 255 to shoot into the lead with 1446 pinfall total and an average of 241.00.

    Adrian Ang (right) was the second player, who cracked the 1400-bar when he rolled six games between 263 and 203 to overtake second place with 1417. Daniel Lim came out of the gates with 259 and 290, the highest game in the tournament thus far. Lim added four games between 200 and 227 to leap into third place with 1392.

    Mohd Nur Aiman and Alex Liew chalked up 1362 and 1312, good for sixth and 8th place in the overall qualifying standings.

    Back from the PBA World Series of Bowling, European ranking leader Osku Palermaa, Finland, posted a 1377 series including a 286 opening game to position him in fourth place as the qualifying has reached its halfway point.

    2009EBT10HabibDogan.jpg2009EBT10KarlWahlgren.jpgPrevious leader Habib DoÄŸan (pictured left), Turkey, fell to fifth place with 1372. Rounding out the top 8 is Karl Wahlgren (right), Sweden, in 7th place with 1318.

    Wendy Kok (right), Netherlands, is the top-ranked woman in 9th place with 1304 including 48 pins handicap, a standard for women on the European Bowling Tour. Hasan Aydın, Turkey, currently mans the 40th and final post to advance with 1125 or an average of 187.50.

    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.

     


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    Qualifying Standings after Squad 15

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