Falco Gutsche leads top 40 into the finals of 5th International Wroclaw Open by Hammer

    02/20/11

    2011 European Bowling Tour #2

    Laura Beuthner shoots tournament's first 300 game; cut was 1268

    2011EBT02OliverBlase.jpg2011EBT02MichaelMichajlow.jpgFalco Gutsche of Germany won the qualifying in the 5th International Wroclaw Open by Hammer to lead the top 40 players into Sun day's finals at bowling center Galeria Rozrywki Miraz in Wroclaw, Poland.

    Gutsche posted a 1463 six game series in the third of total eighteen qualifying squads to pace the field of 118 players from ten countries, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the host country Poland, with an average of 243.83.

    Gutsche's fellow countrymen Oliver Blase (pictured left), Michael Michajlow (right) and Stephan Unger led three of the final four qualifying squads on Saturday. Blasé had games of 245, 221, 239, 238, 233 and 279 in the morning squad 15 to shoots into second place with 1455 (242.50).

    2011EBT02StephanUnger.jpg2011EBT02LauraBeuthner.jpgMichajlow led the final squad 18 with 1392 including back-to-back 250-plus games to move into ninth place, while Unger (left) topped Squad 16 with 1324, good for 21st place overall.

    Italian Marco Cesare Parapini finished atop the leaderboard in Squad 17 with 1374 to make the first cut in 11th place. Paweł Bielski was the top local bowler in third place with 1446.

    Laura Beuthner (right) of Germany closed out her series in Squad 16 with the tournament's only 300 game thus far and finished qualifying as the best of nine women in 23rd place with 1316 including 48 pins handicap. Beuthner and Poland's Daria Pająk, who landed in 30th place with 1306, were the only women who survived the first cut.

    Göran Bergendorff, Sweden, took the 40th and last place to advance with 1268 or an average of 211.33.

    2011IWOLogo_small.jpg The 5th International Wroclaw Open by Hammer (IWO) is the first of six European Bowling Tour "Satellite" events of the 2011 season. The tournament will be held from Monday Feb. 14 through Sunday Feb. 20, 2011 at bowling center Galeria Rozrywki Miraz, a 10-laner in Wroclaw, Poland.

    Since the Viborg International in Viborg, Denmark originally scheduled for July 30-Aug. 7, 2011 has been cancelled, the 2011 European Bowling Tour consists of 21 tour stops in 17 countries including two Platinum, six Gold, seven Silver and six Satellite tournaments.

    The winner of a Platinum tournament receives 250 ranking points, the winner of a Gold tournament gets 150, the winner of a Silver tournament earns 100, and the winner of a Satellite tournament such as the International Wroclaw Open gets 50 ranking points.

    The total prize fund of the 2011 Tour exceeds one million Euro. The top 16 men and women in the EBT ranking will qualify for the fifth EBT Masters at Dream Bowl Palace in Unterföhring near Munich, Germany on April 30 and May 1, 2012.

    Participants in the IWO will compete for total prize money of 26.000 Euro or approximately US $35,200 with 4.250 Euro going to the winner, 2.750 to the runner-up and 2.100 and 1.800 to third and fourth place finishers, respectively.

    The tournament will be contested on a 41 ft. lane conditioning pattern (pdf file).

    Qualifying (6 games, unlimited re-entries) ran from Monday, Feb. 14 through Saturday, Feb. 19. The top 40 players from the qualifying advanced to the finals on Sunday Feb. 20. The pinfall will be carried forward from the qualifying through the stepladder finals. Women receive 8 pins handicap each game, a standard for women on the European Bowling Tour.

    The top 40 will bowl 4 games with the top 20 advancing to the second round. Those 20 will bowl another 4 games to cut to the top 8 who advance to round robin match play. The top 4 players after seven match play games (20 pins bonus per win, 10 for a tie, 5 pins bonus for each game between 250 and 300) will advance to the stepladder finals.

    Stepladder matches one and two will be decided in one game, while the championship match features two games decided by total pinfall. The No. 4 seed bowls the No. 3 seed, the winner takes on the No. 2 seed and the winner of that semifinal match earns the right to bowl the No. 1 seed for the title.

     


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    International Wroclaw Open - Standings after Qualifying


    The top 40 advance to the finals on Sunday, Feb 20, 2011