Szczerbinski moves into lead at World Cup
October 20, 2010
TOULON, France - Team USA's John Szczerbinski took a 75-pin lead after the second round of men's qualifying Wednesday at the 2010 QubicaAMF World Cup.Szczerbinski averaged 246.8 for five games in Round 2 and surged into the lead with a 10-game total of 2,335. Mads Sandbaekken of Norway is second with 2,260.
On the women's side, Team USA's Carolyn Dorin-Ballard sits in eighth place after 11 games with 2,307, while Korea's Min-Young Gye leads with 2,474.
"I did get lucky today and caught some breaks, but when I did get breaks, I took advantage of them," said Szczerbinski, who totaled 1,234 at Bowling de Provence. "I stayed on top of the moves, made good ball changes and that equaled a pretty good block."
Szczerbinski put together five clean games during Wednesday's block and moved from seventh after the first round to the top of the leaderboard. He had games of 238, 246, 267, 256 and 227.
"I'm just happy I was able to perform well and make good shots today," Szczerbinski said. "I still have to go out there and make good shots tomorrow. There's no taking it easy. It's full throttle continuously."
Due to the cancelation of most of Tuesday's play due to structural problems with the ceiling at Bowling de Provence, the women's field bowled a six-game block Wednesday. The women will bowl five games Thursday, while the men will bowl six games as all competitors will finish qualifying with 16 games.
Dorin-Ballard started her six-game block strong with games of 207, 265, 226 and 219 before stumbling a bit down the stretch and shooting 159 and 205.
"I had a good day until the transition hit me in the fourth and fifth games," Dorin-Ballard said. "I squeaked it out the fourth game, but I didn't have a good look in Game 5. Hopefully I will be able to figure it out better tomorrow."
Qualifying wraps up Thursday and the field will be cut to the top 24 men and top 24 women for eight additional games on Friday. The field will be cut again to eight players for round-robin match play Friday night with all pins carrying forward. The top three men and top three women will advance to the semifinals and finals. All rounds are being broadcast live on BOWL.com.
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 men in the field and 76 women.