Happy Birthday to Mads Sandbaekken of Norway, 23 today. A nice birthday present came his way with the final squad on

Mads Sandbaekken

Friday evening as he put together a nice 1393 series to top the squad and come second in the overall standings to Pasi Uotila of Finland, missing breaking the 1400 barrier by just seven pins.

This puts Stuart williams of England into third place now and currently in the coveted top eight positions with byes into the last rounds of Sunday’s finals are one Swede, one Norwegian, one Englishman, one Finn, two Germans, one American and a Kuwaiti, a nice mix of nations.

Needless to say, Sandbaekken, the only leftie to win a squad so far, is truly happy at winning his place into the finals. “It is looking pretty good for the top eight with that score,” commented the lithe Norwegian. ” I can’t see seven people passing us through tomorrow’s squads. I enjoyed some nice birthday carry in a couple of the games. I bowled the first squad this morning, took the midday squad off to watch the football and came back this evening to improve my scores. I’m definitely not going to bowl tomorrow. I’ll just relax and and maybe watch some of our team play. I’ll also watch the Germany v Argentina match.

“The corner pins are definitely stubborn in this house. My ball reaction was early and when I hit the pocket the pins seemed to lie down instead of jumping in the air and I was leaving ringing seven-pins.

“Obviously I’m a leftie, so moving pair to pair was OK for me. I chose to go with a dull ball, throwing it pretty hard, so I didn’t really see much pair difference. I probably didn’t move my feet more than five boards during the entire squad.”

It is disappointing that not one woman has managed to make it into the top 25 of this prestigious event.

Qualifying continues with four more squads on Saturday, fours hours apart from 08:00.

TOP STANDINGS AFTER SQUAD 10: