TOP 8 ROUND ROBIN - FINAL STANDINGS

Field cuts to three for best-of-three game finale on Friday.

"It was good today but I still can't believe that I'm in the finals," said a puzzled Lisa John after the top eight had finished their eight-game stint to total 40 games in this tournament to date. "After three games of the round robin this evening I was resigned to the fact that I wasn't going to make the top three. Luckily, I had a loose arm-swing and the 10-pins carried.
"I would have liked to have played the previous format of best of three games for the top eight rather than the top three, but I can now look forward to my first match against Mai Ginge Jensen and then hopefully meet Diandra Asbaty in the final."
It was touch and go whether Lisa would make it into the top three positions. She was 21 pins and in fourth place behind Scotland's Laura Rhoney going into the final game, the position round, and was to play the burly Scot. Five strikes in a row to finish settled the issue.
Diandra Asbaty powered her way through the final eight games as well as she did leading the top 24. "t was a great day in the office today," she said with a big grin. "I love long formats, they make me patient.  I have a calmness about me and that makes me bowl well. What matters is the place at the end.
"I had no preconceptions about the lanes today. I think they were a little trickier this evening rather than the better condition this morning. I started out with a different ball than this morning but I switcheed back at the end."
Mai Ginge Jensen, easily the slowest bowler on the squad, didn't have a chance of catching Diandra but consolidated her second place, bowling a creditable 220.5 average with a tournament high game of 268.
The ladies start their final at 10am Friday morning.

Osku Palermaa cruised home, nearly 200 pins ahead of defending champion Michael Schmidt. The bulky Canuck, always the last to finish, had the crowd roaring as he hit eleven strikes in a row in his sixth game this evening, but he must have encouraged the crowd to shout too much as he just scored seven with his last ball for a 297. Petter Hansen of Norway could take things easy this evening, too. He was up to 200 pins ahead of fourth place and finished with a 169 buffer.
Friday's final will open at 14:00 with Hansen against Schmidt in a best of three game duel. The winner of that encounter then faces Palermaa.

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