One Saturday squad down, three to go.

Now is the time for those out in the wilderness to try to grab one of the places in tomorrow's finale. The 12 squad winners automatically advance and they will be joined by qualifiers 1-30 and the top six women not among the qualifiers, resulting in a field of 48 who will take home at least €400 with the ultimate champion reaping €6,000.

The opening squad fell just short of being full. After all, who wants to bowl at 09:00 after a nice Friday evening downtown Barcelona?

However, those sturdy souls taking part seemed to enjoy the experience, especially lefty Gery Verbruggen from Ghent in Belgium, who won the squad and therefore slots nicely into tomorrow's line-up.

The stocky Belgian not only won the squad but his six-game total of 1411 gives him first position in the tournament, the only score so far to exceed 1400.

"I'm feeling really good, despite having a bad night's sleep," joked Verbruggen. "I was doing OK this morning until I changed from lanes 11/12 to 1/2, then I started struggling. The lanes are not all that much different, but if you don't make the right adjustments you can get it wrong."

Does the condition suit left-handers more than right? "I think the pattern is the same for both. From what I have seen of the right-handers, if they swing the ball too far out it doesn't come back, but that's the same on the left side. The girls are bowling well because they can play the ball fairly straight and that's a good thing on this condition."

Verbruggen's highest games were a 266 in the fourth and a 251 and 252 finish for a 769 over the last three.

Needless to say, he and wife Muriel can spend the day in Barcelona and enjoy the sights.

Jesper Agerbo from Denmark was second to Verbruggen in this squad, but 61 points back on 1350. He had a 267 in his second game but then lost impetus with a 187.