Day 3 and Women Were on Dawn Patrol

Scoring was down for the bowlers yesterday, but Bernice Lim (Singapore) carried on where she left off, hitting 1127 over her five games and moving into the lead with 3349, and a 223 average. Bernice last played in the World Cup in Melaka in 2009 and finished 20^th.

Nadine Geissler of Germany also scored well and moved up into second with 3213, her set including the high game of the day, a 268.

Lisa John found the going difficult and dropped down to 5^th but Sweden’s Jenny Wegner hit another all-200 set, a total of 1118, and moved into 4^th behind Rebecca Whiting of Australia.

There are now just five games to go for the women and the cut for the top 24 is currently a 186.73 average, with Christina Sanz of Catalonia in 24^th, just ahead of Sarah Young of New Zealand with 186.53.

Defending champion Clara Guerrero of Colombia is in 15^th place, while another former champion, Aumi Guerra of the Dominican Republic is in 17^th.

All to play for tomorrow!

The men played in the afternoon. Martin Larsen of Sweden, who came second in Hermosillo in 2008, looked to be having it all his own way, but a couple of poor games left the door open. Wang Hongbo of China hit an excellent 1119 to go into the lead, much to the delight and excitement of the local spectators.

Rafiq Ismail of Malaysia was the only other player to hit over 1100, with 1109 which moved him up into 6^th.

Again, 200 games were hard to come by, with no man hitting the mark in every game.

But we do have a new high game in the men’s section, a 286, bowled by Arturs Levikins of Latvia who said:  “I hope it holds till the end. It might, you never know. Scoring here has not been that easy.”  Arturs’ fiancée, Maria Tkachenko, is playing in the women’s section.

So we now have the host nation on top in the person of Wang Hongbo with 3220, (very) closely followed by Martin Larsen with 3219 and Sam Cooley of Australia with 3190. Early leader Russia’s Yan Korshak is now in 4^th.

With the cut for the top 24 just five games away, there are six pins in it for 24^th place: Chris Sloan, the two handed player from Ireland is above the cut on 2932, while Spain’s Melvin Ocando is just out on 2928.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.