Nicki Ainge, from Leeds, England, struck a loud chord for the distaff side of bowling by taking Squad 9 by the bootstraps and

hitting 1440, including bonus, to bound into third place in the overall standings.

"I'm using Columbia balls and after a 216 start I switched to a second ball and went well from there. Luckily I did not have much trouble today with corner pins."

Ainge was the top woman bowler in the 2009 European Bowling Tour rankings.

She outpointed Swedish international Peter Ljung, the leftie who was team manager for the victorious European team in the recent Federation Cup, an event which preceded the Barcelona Open.

Whilst Ainge had a high game of 268 in her second, Ljung was ten pins behind that in his second game, but he was 47 pins back when the dust of battle had settled. Third placwe went to the unique two-handed delivery wizard, Osku Palermaa, on 1376.

TOP 15 OVERALL STANDINGS AFTER SQUAD 9:
(Yellow back denotes squad winner)