England, Denmark clinch main titles

The 13th Malta Open Tenpin Bowling Championships came to a typically thrilling conclusion on Sunday afternoon at Eden Leisure's SuperBowl in St Julian's.

The climax of this highly successful international ranking event was the step-ladder finals, which were won by England's Paul Moor and Denmark's Iben Tchu in the male and female categories respectively.

Malta's best performance came from Sue Abela (champion in 1998 and 2002) who placed third among a tough field of 70-plus ladies, while Brian Farrugia was best among the 180-plus male field, finishing 16th.

Play started in the middle of last week with all competitors playing 12 qualifying games, which were completed by Saturday morning.

The top 72 men and 36 ladies bowled another four games in round two, after which the men were cut down to 36 for four more games, followed by a further four games for the top 18 in both categories.

The final stages consisted of the top eight men and ladies, bowling a round-robin which incorporated bonus pins for wins, ties and high games. After that, the top four bowlers faced off in the exciting one-game step-ladder finals.

Abela finished round one in 10th place on 2,366 pins while Sweden's Christel Carlsson topped the classification on a fantastic 2,494 total. Elsewhere, Malta was represented by Melissa Anastasi (23), Pam Demanuele (24) and Doris Camilleri (28).

Only Abela (11) and Anastasi (17) progressed beyond round two. Then after round three, only Abela was still in the contest, recovering well to advance to fifth place.

Abela won four of her seven round-robin games to move third, giving her a place in the step-ladders along with Tchu as the top qualifier, Bibi Manico (Switzerland) in second, and Germany's Nicole Knopp in fourth.

She disposed of Knopp with a 190-177 win in the first game of the finals, and went on to meet Manico in the semi, the latter winning 213-208 to head for the final against Tchu.

The finalists played another great match, but the Dane was striking more consistently, stringing five together in frames 5-9 to win the championship title, 221-202.

Although nine locals made the first cut in the men's contest, they were reduced to two after the second round - with Ray Falzon in 29th, and Brian Farrugia up in 20th.

Farrugia just made the round three cut in 18th place with a 4,149 tally, and finished 16th among the top 18, missing out on qualification by 105 pins.

The top four for the step-ladder were Peter Smits (Hol), Jouni Helminen (Fin), Moor (Eng) and Leonard Lowenhamn (Swe).

First up were Moor and Lowenhamn, the former winning 247-180, before also clinching the semi-final against Helminen, 224-215.

The SuperBowl was full for the final matches, and the volume level of the cheers reached their climax during the men's England vs Germany final match.

Moor secured the Malta Open title with a 201-174 victory.

The presentation of the trophies and cash prizes totalling Lm9,440 was conducted by Neil Dent, SuperBowl general manager and tournament director.

Naples tournament

An extra bonus for the two best Maltese bowlers, Abela and Farrugia, was the presentation of a plaque and also free entries to the first ever Oltremare Championships in Naples, Italy next November as well as return air tickets, courtesy of Air Malta.

Oltremare proprietor Sig. Scuotta and general manager Stefano Coppa were in Malta to make the presentation.