BY NOLAN HUGHES

A banner week for Sweden at the Guaranteed Rate PBA World Series of Bowling XIII continued as Pontus Andersson dominated qualifying at the PBA Shark Championship. He is the second Swedish player to lead a qualifying round, joining William Svensson (Cheetah). Nine of the 26-year-old Andersson's 10 games on the 48-foot Shark pattern topped 235.

Keven Williams, Cristian Azcona, AJ Chapman and Jason Sterner round out the top five. Among the notable advancers are 14-time major titleist Jason Belmonte, 2022 Kia PBA Tournament of Champions winner Dom Barrett and last year’s World Championship winner Tom Daugherty.

Jakob Butturff and Patrick Hanrahan, both left-handers, were the only players to advance to match play on all three patterns. They sit first and second in the World Championship standings. Qualifying seventh on Shark marked Darren Tang’s first individual cut of the week and helped him skyrocket up the World Championship leaderboard. He told FloBowling that getting comfortable and seeing the picture early—he rolled the front 10 and 287 in game one—carried over into his best performance of the week.

Tang climbed from 64th place after 20 games into 33rd in the World Championship standings. He snuck in as the cut number, besting Brandon Runk by seven pins.

The top 33 players from 30 games of qualifying on Cheetah, Scorpion and Shark advance to the World Championship cashers round, which will begin at 1 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 10. The competition will be streamed live on FloBowling.

Jason Sterner did not practice on the 43-foot Earl Anthony pattern, which will be used for all World Championship competition, but told FloBowling he expects to play near the track area. He has found success in that part of the lane all week and hopes to shut down his angles, which has been a strength of his throughout his career.

Five Swedish players advanced in the World Championship, including Andersson, William Svensson, Jesper Svensson, Rasmus Edvall and Martin Larsen.

PBA SHARK CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH PLAY QUALIFIERS

1. Pontus Andersson +442
2. Keven Williams +396
3. AJ Chapman +337*
4. Jason Sterner +337*
5. Cristian Azcona +334
6. Jason Belmonte +320
7. Darren Tang +316
8. Patrick Hanrahan +306
9. Jakob Butturff +295
10. Dom Barrett +294*
11. BJ Moore +294*
12. Tom Daugherty +293
13. Mitch Hupe +292
14. John Furey +257*
15. Jake Peters +257*
16. Anthony Simonsen +252

*Ties are broken by the higher final block, which were bowled by Chapman, Barrett and Furey.

View the full PBA Shark Championship standings

PBA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY PABST BLUE RIBBON ADVANCERS

1. Jakob Butturff +909
2. Patrick Hanrahan +831
3. Kristopher Prather +774
4. EJ Tackett +773
5. Tommy Jones +760
6. Jesper Svensson +742
7. Cristian Azcona +728
8. Jason Sterner +725
9. Pontus Andersson +698
10. Sean Rash +667
11. Kyle Troup +665
12. Jason Belmonte +662
13. Anthony Simonsen +643
14. Norm Duke +579
15. Rasmus Edvall +575
16. Michael Tang +574
17. AJ Johnson +574
18. Martin Larsen +561
19. Dom Barrett +553
20. Matt Russo +551
21. Chris Via +546
22. Tom Smallwood +535
23. Kyle Sherman +535
24. Ryan Ciminelli +528
25. Matt Sanders +520
26. Keven Williams +519
27. William Svensson +510
28. Mitch Hupe +507
29. Ronnie Russell +499
30. Nicholas Pate +498
31. Andrew Anderson +497
32. Zacharay Wilkins +491
33. Darren Tang +478

View the full PBA World Championship presented by Pabst Blue Ribbon standings

GUARANTEED RATE PBA WORLD SERIES OF BOWLING XIII STREAMING AND TV SCHEDULE

PBA World Championship presented by Pabst Blue Ribbon: Qualifying and Match play – Mar. 10-11 on FloBowling
PBA World Championship presented by Pabst Blue Ribbon – Mar. 13, 1 p.m. ET on FOX
PBA Cheetah Championship – Mar. 14, 8 p.m. ET on FS1
PBA Scorpion Championship – Mar. 15, 8 p.m. ET on FS1
PBA Shark Championship – Mar. 16, 8 p.m. ET on FS1
PBA Collegiate Invitational presented by Storm – Mar. 20, 2:30 p.m. ET on FS1