England, Korea earn top seeds for finals at World Cup

TOULON, France - England's Matt Miller and Korea's Gye Min-Young earned the top seeds for Saturday's finals at the 2010 QubicaAMF World Cup, while Team USA's Carolyn Dorin-Ballard and John Szczerbinski fell just short of reaching the semifinals.

Miller finished with a 32-game total of 7,143, including 90 bonus pins for a 3-5 match-play record, to earn the No. 1 spot in the men's division. Michael Schmidt of Canada and Biboy Rivera of the Philippines will battle in the semifinal.

Gye earned the top seed on the women's side by nearly 300 pins, finishing with 7,150, including 180 bonus pins for a 6-2 record. Fiona Banks of England and Aumi Guerra of the Dominican Republic will meet in the semifinal.

Dorin-Ballard took fourth place, finishing 60 pins behind Guerra in the battle for the last spot in the semifinal. Dorin-Ballard went 4-4 in matches and finished with a 6,780 total.

"I'm disappointed because I really felt like I bowled really well and did enough to make the semifinals," Dorin-Ballard said. "I felt like I had to be so perfect to strike, but physically this is the best I've thrown the ball in a long time."

Szczerbinski, who led the tournament after 16 games and was second after 24 games, ended up fifth, missing the semifinals by 139 pins. He went 3-5 in match play and ended with a total of 6,899.

"Being the leader and dropping to fifth is definitely disappointing," Szczerbinski said. "I guess I just have to learn from this experience and move on."

The World Cup is the largest international bowling tournament in the world in terms of the number of countries competing. This year, 93 countries are competing with 92 players in the men's field and 76 in the women's division.