Malaysians hold on to the lead in 2009 Ankara Open

    09/11/09

    2009 European Bowling Tour #10

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

    2009EBT10AaronKong.jpg2009EBT10WendyKok.jpgMalaysian national team members Aaron Kong, Adrian Ang and Daniel Lim remained atop the leaderboard in the 2009 Ankara Open after the sixth day of qualifying at Rollhouse Bowling Center in Ankara, Turkey.

    With 20 out of 28 qualifying squads in the books, Kong (pictured left) leads the field of 130 players - 105 men and 25 women - from 12 countries with 1446 six-game total and an average of 241.00. Ang is second with 1417 and Lim third with 1392.

    Wendy Kok (right), Netherlands, who was the top-ranked woman with 1304 including 48 pins handicap, a standard for women on the European Bowling Tour, improved her total to 1384 on Thursday en route to leap into fourth place.

    Reigning European Bowling Tour ranking queen, Nina Flack, Sweden, checked in with 1333, good for 15th place in the overall standings.

    2009EBT10ToreTorgersen.jpg2009EBT10TomasLeandersson.jpgTore Torgersen (left), who celebrated his 41st birthday on Sept. 10th, hat six consistent games between 222 and 242 to overtake fifth place with 1380. Osku Palermaa, Finland, and Habib DoÄŸan, Turkey, slipped to sixth and seventh place with 1377 and 1372, respectively.

    Rounding out the top 8 is Martin Paulsson, Sweden, with 1369.

    Swedish legend Tomas Leandersson (right), Sweden, just missed a 300 game by 2 pins in his second game and rollercoastered to a 1345 series to sit in 12th place. Rune Christensen, Denmark, is the "man on the bubble" in 40th place with 1197 or an average of 199.50.

    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 20

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