Catalonian Alvar Cardona moves to the top of the leaderboard in BNC Open

    08/18/11

    2011 European Bowling Tour #13

    All four squad leaders from Wednesday's qualifying advance to the finals on Sunday, Aug. 21

    2011EBT13AlvaCardona.jpg2011EBT13RomeoGagenoiu.jpgAlvar Cardona (pictured left) of Catalonia averaged 229.17 in Wednesday's squad 10 en route to move to the top of the leaderboard in the qualifying of the BNC Open currently underway at BNC Bowling Center in Bratislava, Slovakia.

    Cardona had games of 245, 216, 250, 237, 212 and 215 and a total of 1375 to beat out previous leader Romeo Gagenoiu (right), Romania for the pole position by two pins. Gagenoiu, who slipped to second place with 1373, re-entered in Squad 12 on Wednesday night but was unable to regain the lead though he led the squad with 1303, a 217.17 average.

    Defending champion Thomas Gross (below left), Austria, who led after the first four squads on Monday with 1359, slipped another spot to third place and is followed by Bogdan Dobondi, Sweden, in fourth place with 1299.

    2011EBT13YanaKuznetcova.jpg2011EBT13ThomasGross2.jpgYana Kuznetcova (right) became the best of now 33 women in the 164-player field from 14 countries when he rolled a 1290 series including 48 pins handicap to lead Squad 9.

    The Russian had games of 226, 208, 224, 162, 191 and 231 for 1242 scratch, an average of 207 to jump into fifth place.

    Martin Orálek, Czech Republic, fell to sixth place with 1277 and is followed by Squad 11 leader Zoltán Skobrics, Hungary, who used high games of 236, 225 and 224 for 1270.

    2011EBT04ArturLevikin.jpgThe four squad leaders led the separate standings from Wednesday's qualifying squads 9-12 and are automatically qualified for the finals on Sunday, Aug. 21. According to the rules, Gagenoiu, who was the best player on Tuesday, is qualified through his result from Wednesday. Artur Levikin (right), Latvia, who was fifth-best player Tuesday with 1225, will take advantage.

    With 12 out of 24 qualifying squads in the books, Taco Verhoef, Netherlands, holds the 48th and last place to advance to the finals with 1136 and an average of 189.33. Qualifying continues on Thursday, Aug. 18 with Squads 13-16 slated for 9 a.m., 1, 5 and 9 p.m. CET.

    2011EBT13BNCOpenLogo_small.jpg The BNC Open is the 13th stop of the 2011 European Bowling Tour and the fifth out of seven EBT "Silver" tournaments this season.

    The tournament will be held from Aug. 15-21, 2011 at BNC Bowling Center, a 16-laner in Bratislava, Slovakia. The BNC Open offers total prize fund of 42.000 Euro with 6.000 Euro going to the winner, 3.300 to the runner-up and 1.800 each to the third and fourth place finisher.

    2010EBT13ThomasGrossPaulMoor_small.jpg 2010EBT13DulceFernandez_small.jpg
    Austria's Thomas Gross defeated three-time EBT ranking champion Paul Moor (pictured left, l-r), England, 462-396 over two games total pins, to win last year's inaugural BNC Bratislava Open. Gross received 5.000 Euro for his efforts. Dulce Fernandez (right), Spain, was the only woman, who advanced to the Round of 16 en route to win the women's ranking in 2010.

    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 top 50 men and the top 50 women in each event receive ranking points. The winner of a Platinum tournament receives 250 ranking points, the winner of a Gold tournament gets 150, the winner of a Silver tournament such as the BNC Open earns 100, and the winner of a Satellite tournament gets 50 ranking points.

    The top 16 men and the top 16 women at the end of the 2011 season qualify for the fifth EBT Masters to be held at Dream-Bowl Palace in Unterföhring near Munich, Germany on April 30 and May 1, 2012. The event will become the first EBT Masters to be contested on single lane condition.

    Qualifying of the BNC Open (six-game series, unlimited re-entries) runs from Monday, Aug. 15 through Saturday, Aug. 20 featuring four squads each day at 9 a.m., 1, 5 and 9 p.m. CET. Qualifying will conclude with the one-game Desperado Squad slated for 12.30 a.m. on Sunday morning.

    Women will receive 8 pins handicap each game throughout the entire event, a standard for women on the European Bowling Tour.

    The BNC Open features a 39 feet Kegel lane conditioning pattern with 22.45ml volume oil total.

    A total of 64 players will advance to the finals on Sunday, Aug. 21: The top 48 players from the overall qualifying standings, plus the top 4 each from a separate leaderboard of the Squads on Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday, who are not among the top 48. The last four spots are reserved for the top 4 of the Desperado Squad.

    The top 16 qualifiers earn two byes, while players seeded 17-32 bypass the first round of the finals. The remaining 32 players will bowl 3 games starting from scratch with the top 16 advancing to the second round.

    The second and third round will be played in the same format. The 16 players, who advance to the fourth round will carry forward the pinfall total from Round 3 and bowl another three-game block to cut to the top 8 for single-elimination match play.

    Match play consists of two games, with the total pinfall to determine the winner. In all rounds the highest seeded player will meet the lowest seeded player, the second highest will meet the second lowest etc.

    The field will be trimmed to four then two players who will bowl for the title and the 6.000 Euro top prize.

     


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    Standings after Qualifying Squad 12/24