KUWAIT: The 13th Kuwait International Bowling Tournament will come to a close tonight, which marks the last rounds of the international tour 2019, with prizes totaling $218 thousand, with $50,000 as top prize.
There are 112 bowlers from all over the world participating in the tournament including world and ranked champions and some amateurs, all looking to win the top spot.
Competition of the last day will be over three periods, as 16 players will compete in the third round from 10 am to 11:30 am, for five spots to qualify for the final which will be held from 4 pm to 7 pm.
The two decisive rounds for women and men, Kuwaitis only, will be held between 1 pm to 3 pm.
Yesterday saw competitions of the first and second rounds as the preliminaries were concluded after 22 rounds, then players were distributed over three categories: The seeded from 1 to 8 including a woman and a Kuwaiti player, then from 9 to 16 including two women, then from 17 to 48 including 3 women and 2 Kuwaitis.
The 17-48 seeds will compete in the first round with eight qualifying for the second round to compete with the 9-16 seeds, for 8 places to qualify for the third round which includes the 1-8 seeds.
Australia's Sam Cooley topped the list of the top ranked players with the score of 1,409 points, followed Iceland's Arnar Johnson with 1,396, Hong Kong's Michael Mak 1,386, Danish Thomas Larson 1,375, England's Stewart Williams 1,366, American Nik Pate 1,364, and the USA Open Champion for 2019 American Danielle McEwan, and Kuwait's Mustafa Al-Musawi 1,335.
Iceland's Arner Johnson said this his first time in Kuwait, and enjoyed the warm weather.
He said Kuwait Bowling Center is huge and magnificent with a number of lanes that is double that in Iceland.
He said competition is tough all along and will be hard in the finals, besides the new scoring system makes it hard to predict any winner.
He said the new system has its positives and negatives, but it is hard to make a judgment at this early stage, and all what we have to do is to adapt with it and see what happens.
By Abdellatif Sharaa