For the third time in the last four qualifying squads in the 6th Columbia 300 Vienna Open, the squad leader checked in with a 1313 six-game total, an average of 218,83. Rasmus Ussing (pictured left) accomplished the feat Friday morning in the 10th qualifying squad at Plus Bowling in Vienna, Austria.

The Dane had a high game of 258 and finished with 223 to beat out Jari Ratia, Finland, and Achim Grabowski, Germany for 11th place due to the higher last game.

Australia's Jason Belmonte held on to the lead with 1412, the sole 1400 series in the tournament thus far. Mikael Kanold from Sweden is second with 1385, with Alexander Rauscher, Austria, in third place with 1367.

Eike Kabowski (right), Germany, was close behind Ussing with 1312, good for 14th place in the overall qualifying standings. Kabowski had two 247 games, two 201s, a 226 and a low game of 190.

John Gouldbaek (left), Denmark, was another 9 pins behind with 1303 thanks to back-to-back 230s in games 5 and 6. Gouldbaek moved into 15th place with 1303 pinfall total.

Bianca Wiekeraad (right), Netherlands, is the top-ranked woman in the field of 219 bowlers in 17th place with 1291 including 48 pins handicap, a standard on the European Bowling Tour for women.

With 10 out of 17 qualifying squads in the books, Christian Schrempf (left) from Austria is the "man on the bubble" in 52nd place with 1215 pinfall total or an average of 202.50.

Qualifying continues on Friday, Oct. 3rd, with another three squads starting at 1pm, 5pm and 9pm.

The Vienna Open, the 14th stop of the 2008 European Bowling Tour and one of the Tour's "Major", will be held from Sep. 30 - Oct. 5, in Vienna, Austria.

More than 290 players will compete for total prize money of 65.630 Euro - 55.400 € in Singles and 10.230 € in Doubles. The singles champion will receive the 6.000 € top prize while the doubles winners will split 1.600 €.

In last year's title match, Swede Dennis Eklund (pictured right) defeated Yoan Alix, France, 235-199, en route to win his first EBT title. Tina Hulsch, Germany, won the women's rankings.

Once again the qualifying for the Vienna Open finals is contested as a doubles tournament. Each duo rolls at least one six-game block. Unlimited re-entries with different partners are possible but each player can only cash once with the same partner.

The team with the highest total pinfall including handicap will be declared the winner (no finals will be played). The top 20 doubles will cash.

Stuart Williams, England, and Germany's Tina Hulsch are the defending champions (pictured left).

Qualifying runs from Tuesday through Saturday and ends with the ultimate one-game Desperado Squad on Saturday night Oct. 4 slated for 11.30 pm local time (GMT +1).


A total of 64 players from the qualifying will advance to the finals starting on Sunday, Oct. 5 at 8am:

The top 8 players with the highest six-game qualifying result will earn one bye and will be seeded 1-8 in the match play Round of 32

players positioned 9th to 52nd after qualifying

the six leaders of Squads 1-6 and

the top 6 from the Desperado Squad.

All but the top 8 qualifiers (56 players overall) will bowl 6 games starting from scratch to cut to the top 24. Those 24 will be seeded 9-32 in the match play Round of 32.

The Round of 32, 16 and 8 will feature single-elimination match play in best-of-three games format. The highest seeded player bowls the lowest seeded player, the second-highest seeded player vs. the second-lowest seeded player, etc.

The semifinals (No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3) and the championship match will be decided in one game. A major on the European Bowling Tour, the top 50 men and the top 50 women will receive double ranking points.

For more information on the 6th Columbia 300 Vienna Open click here.