Rivera paces bowling WCup

TOULON, France – Former World Masters champion Engelberto “Biboy” Rivera of the Philippines got off to a hot start in the men’s qualifying round of the QubicaAMF Bowling World Cup by scoring a five-game series of 1181 pins at the Bowling de Provence here Monday.

 “I don’t bowl well in practice and gambled on a different game plan when we started. I bowled a little straighter and that gave me more room for error, plus I got good carry. I’m very pleased with the way I played today but there is still a long way to go,” Rivera said later.

The bespectacled Filipino put together games of 191, 279, 245, 207 and 259 to pace Switzeland’s Kwan Harn-Chieh, who tallied 1159, 1988 World Cup winner Mohammad Al-Qubaisi of UAE (1145), Costa Rica’s Alejandro Reyna (1107) and Venezuela’s William Ching (1107).

Apple Posadas, the Philippines’ entry in the women’s division, checked in 17th place after the first day with 1007 for an average of 201.40 pins.

Malaysia’s Wendy Chai led the women’s competition with 1126 (225.20 average), followed by Korea’s Gye Min-young (1114), Scotland’s Holly Fleming (1090), Dominican Republic’s Aumi Guerra (1087), Sweden’s Helen Johnsson (1056), Japan’s Natsumi Koizumi (1039), Germany’s Vanessa Timter (1039), Finland’s Piritta Kantola (1037), England’s Fiona Banks (1034) and the United States’ Carolyn Dorin-Ballard (1026).

A total of 92 countries are participating in this year’s event.

The other top men’s bowlers are Northern Ireland’s Billy Nimick, sixth with 1103, American John Szczerbinski, 1101, Meico’s Robert Silve, 1090, France’s Nicolas Forestier, 1086, and England’s Matt Miller, 1081.

Reyna shot 289 for the high game so far in the prestigious international tourney, where the Philippines’ Paeng Nepomuceno holds an unprecedented record of four titles.

The preliminaries consist of four blocks of five games with the top 24 men and top 24 women after 20 games advancing to the intermediate round. The top 24 players bowl another eight games with the pinfall total from the preliminaries carried over.

The top eight men and top eight women after 28 games will bowl a seven-game round-robin match play plus one game posititon round with 30 pins bonus per win and 15 for a tie. The top three men and top three women after 36 games including bonus pins will determine the champions in a stepladder final in best-of-three games format.