Cerdeña, Suarez out of contention

LISBON – Veteran bowler Arianne Cerdeña and rookie CJ Suarez failed to make it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup international finals Thursday at Bowling International de Lisboa here.

Cerdeña rolled a 40-game series of 8165 pins to finish 11th while Suarez carded 8349, also in 40 games, to rank 21st.

Cerdeña averaged 204.1 as she emerged the second best finisher among Southeast Asian bowlers in the women’s division. Suarez averaged 208.7.

Tore Torgersen of Norway and Shalin Zulkifli of Malaysia are the top-seeded players as the World Cup moved into the two-day, single elimination phase that will decide the new men and women’s champions.

Torgersen and Zulkifli earned their rankings by virtue of being the top scorers after 40 games of qualifying. Torgersen, the 1994 World Cup champion, averaged 226.5 with total pinfalls of 9058 in the men’s 88-player division, while Zulkifli bypassed Wednesday’s leader Clara Juliana Guerrero to top the 67-player women’s field. Zulkifli fired an eight-game set of 1715 to push her total to 8748 pins and 218.7 average.

The field of play moves Friday from Bowling Internacional de Lisboa to two specially installed lanes in the Sala Tejo room of the Atlantic Pavilion, on the grounds of Nations Park. The top eight men and women scorers after 40 games will complete in single-elimination, best two-of-three matches, with top seeds Torgersen and Zulkifli taking the No. 8 seeds, Domencio Righi of San Marino and Kirsten Penny of England, respectively, in their first matches. Seeding is assigned by scoring finish at the conclusion of today’s competition.