Day 3 - Kegel/USBC World Ranking Masters 2007
Lake Wales, Florida, USA: Kegel Training and Tournament Centre, venue of this year’s World Ranking Masters, has a unique claim to fame – the World’s Flattest Lanes! Originally developed for lane pattern research, Kegel’s engineers and fabricators built the Kegel Training and Tournament Centre with 12 fully adjustable lanes. “Because these lanes are adjustable every two feet, we have made them the flattest lanes in the world!” states Kegel Founder, John Davis. “This means not only can we produce consistent results, we can PROVE them time after time,” he says.
By combining a near-perfect playing field and the challenge of totally different (Long and Short Oil) lane conditions on each pair, the talent of the world’s top bowlers has been stretched to the maximum in the final qualifying round of the World Ranking Masters tournament.
As Squad 3 scores rolled in overnight from Saturday’s play, Finland’s Osku Palermaa shot lines of 224, 276, 277, 236, 225, 245, 267 and 196 on his way to claiming his second Squad winner’s bonus and another US$1,000 prize as top qualifier going into the matchplay rounds.
In rare lapses, both Palermaa and fellow two-handed bowler Jason Belmonte from Australia opened frames in the final game of the 24-game qualifying rounds, but recovered to comfortably finish first and second overall.
Sweden’s Martin Larsen shot a superb 279 final game to emphatically claim a berth in the quarter finals, scheduled for 2.30 pm Sunday, local time. A 278 final score by Thomas Gross of Austria and a disappointing 170 game by Singapore’s Remy Ong relegated Ong to ninth position overall, with Filipino Biboy Rivera and Zulmazran Zulkifli of Malaysia the next best Asian Zone bowlers in 12th and 13th place respectively.
The cut to the top eight will see European Zone bowlers feature in the men’s division quarter-final tomorrow between #1 Osku Palermaa, Finland vs. #8 Thomas Gross, Austria; #2 Jason Belmonte, Australia vs. #7 Peter Ljung, Sweden; #3 Stuart Williams, England vs. #6 David O'Sullivan, United States and #4 Paul Moor, England vs. #5 Martin Larsen, Sweden.
"I'm very happy with how I played, but the real tournament starts now," said Belmonte from Florida this morning. "With best-of-three games format, anyone can win...I just hope it's me," he added.
Hits to the official website (www.Kegel.net) that allows web visitors around the world to log on and view statistics for all players have broken previous records, with traffic so high it temporarily interrupted the transmission of the computerised scoring system. However, entertaining, up-to-the-minute commentary continued to stream via www.bowlersjournal.com and www.bowlingdigital.com as the battle for a top-eight placing intensified.
The final eight-game block in the Women’s division is now underway, with Canada’s Caroline Lagrange, Zara Glover from England and Diandra Asbaty from the United States the top three seeds going into the last qualifying round.
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lynne clay
Lake Wales, Florida, USA: Kegel Training and Tournament Centre, venue of this year’s World Ranking Masters, has a unique claim to fame – the World’s Flattest Lanes! Originally developed for lane pattern research, Kegel’s engineers and fabricators built the Kegel Training and Tournament Centre with 12 fully adjustable lanes. “Because these lanes are adjustable every two feet, we have made them the flattest lanes in the world!” states Kegel Founder, John Davis. “This means not only can we produce consistent results, we can PROVE them time after time,” he says.
By combining a near-perfect playing field and the challenge of totally different (Long and Short Oil) lane conditions on each pair, the talent of the world’s top bowlers has been stretched to the maximum in the final qualifying round of the World Ranking Masters tournament.
As Squad 3 scores rolled in overnight from Saturday’s play, Finland’s Osku Palermaa shot lines of 224, 276, 277, 236, 225, 245, 267 and 196 on his way to claiming his second Squad winner’s bonus and another US$1,000 prize as top qualifier going into the matchplay rounds.
In rare lapses, both Palermaa and fellow two-handed bowler Jason Belmonte from Australia opened frames in the final game of the 24-game qualifying rounds, but recovered to comfortably finish first and second overall.
Sweden’s Martin Larsen shot a superb 279 final game to emphatically claim a berth in the quarter finals, scheduled for 2.30 pm Sunday, local time. A 278 final score by Thomas Gross of Austria and a disappointing 170 game by Singapore’s Remy Ong relegated Ong to ninth position overall, with Filipino Biboy Rivera and Zulmazran Zulkifli of Malaysia the next best Asian Zone bowlers in 12th and 13th place respectively.
The cut to the top eight will see European Zone bowlers feature in the men’s division quarter-final tomorrow between #1 Osku Palermaa, Finland vs. #8 Thomas Gross, Austria; #2 Jason Belmonte, Australia vs. #7 Peter Ljung, Sweden; #3 Stuart Williams, England vs. #6 David O'Sullivan, United States and #4 Paul Moor, England vs. #5 Martin Larsen, Sweden.
"I'm very happy with how I played, but the real tournament starts now," said Belmonte from Florida this morning. "With best-of-three games format, anyone can win...I just hope it's me," he added.
Hits to the official website (www.Kegel.net) that allows web visitors around the world to log on and view statistics for all players have broken previous records, with traffic so high it temporarily interrupted the transmission of the computerised scoring system. However, entertaining, up-to-the-minute commentary continued to stream via www.bowlersjournal.com and www.bowlingdigital.com as the battle for a top-eight placing intensified.
The final eight-game block in the Women’s division is now underway, with Canada’s Caroline Lagrange, Zara Glover from England and Diandra Asbaty from the United States the top three seeds going into the last qualifying round.
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lynne clay
