After a close fought six-game series as the opening squad on Saturday morning it was Sicilian Andrea Palazzotti who emerged the
man with the highest score, posting 1325 to slot into 27th place in the overall standings.
The 20-year-old resident of Palermo in Sicily bowled in the Brunswick Italia Challenge for the first time and is mighty pleased with his performance but maybe a little disappointed that the pins were not a trace kinder so that he could have bagged a spot in the top ten.
Frontrunner up until the final game was Austria's Thomas Gross, the runner-up to Ronnie Russell, the American pro, in last year's exciting finale. Gross went into game six with 1102 and after a string of good 200 games dropped to a 153 and so does not make the cut into the top 40.
Russia's Andrey Suslov came within twopins of equalling Palazzotti's 1325 and Gross' fellow countryman Michael Loos took third place on the squad with 1321.
Three more squads take to the Red & Black lanes today and places are tight with waiting lists for each group.
Current top 10 standings:
| POS | NAME | NAT | GEN | BEST PINS |
LAST GAME |
SQUAD # | SQUAD COUNT |
HAND | |
| 1 | Williams, Stuart | ENG | M | 1492 | 198 | 19 | 2 | R | |
| 2 | Ciminelli, Ryan | USA | M | 1483 | 276 | 13 | 2 | L | |
| 3 | Andersson, Kim | SWE | M | 1453 | 226 | 13 | 1 | R | |
| 4 | Rash, Sean | USA | M | 1442 | 206 | 11 | 2 | R | |
| 5 | Larsen, Martin | SWE | M | 1427 | 233 | 19 | 2 | R | |
| 6 | Valenta, Brian | USA | M | 1423 | 258 | 19 | 3 | R | |
| 7 | Pirozzi, Massimo | ITA | M | 1388 | 268 | 08 | 2 | R | |
| 8 | D'Achille, Nico | ITA | M | 1375 | 228 | 19 | 4 | R | |
| 9 | Moor, Paul | ENG | M | 1366 | 234 | 18 | 2 | L | |
| 10 | Larsen, Thomas | DEN | M | 1363 | 255 | 17 | 2 | R |
