World Ranking Masters - 2007 - Lake Wales, Florida

Lake Wales, Florida

The 2007 World Ranking Masters event will be held in the Kegel Training centre, Lake Wales, Florida after the original Hosts, Qatar withdrew from hosting the event in February 2007.

The five-day competition will start May 3rd and will conclude with the TV finals on May 7th.

"We have TV again. It will be a 90-minute show this time, maybe even two hours", Kegel founder John Davis proudly stated. "The county made the decision to back the show. It seems they were very happy with our performance and ratings last time."

It marks the third time after 2003 and 2005 that the prestigious event will come to the Kegel headquarters.

"This will be the 7th edition of this tournament and we are proud to be able to have the tournament at our Kegel Training and Tournament centre here in Lake Wales, Florida for the third time", said Del Warren, Tournament Manager and Vice President of Kegel Training and Tournament centre. "In fact, I think we will make the theme of this tournament 'A Celebration of the Sport of Bowling'.

The World Ranking Masters features the top eight men and top eight women from each of the three WTBA zones (American, European and Asian) plus one male and one female bowler to be picked by the host - a total of 25 men and 25 women.

Sara Vargas, Colombia, will be on hand to defend the women's title while Khalid Al Dubyan of Kuwait, the 2006 men's World Ranking Masters champion did not qualify through the Asian rankings.

As tournament hosts, Kegel and USBC jointly selected Team USA members Bill Hoffman of Columbus, Ohio, and Diandra Asbaty of Chicago, Illinois to represent the United States in the event. However, just before the start of the tournament Bill Hoffman had to unfortunately withdraw due to a foot injury. Hoffman was replaced at short notice by Team USA team-mate, David O'Sullivan of Orlando, Florida.

The Kegel/USBC World Ranking Masters will have a first prize of $10,000 US Dollars for both the men and the women and we will be paying down to 10th place.

"We will also be unveiling a few new ideas to help promote the sport of bowling with the goal of elevating our sport to the next level", Warren added.

"We want to express our gratitude to the World Tenpin Bowling Association for their confidence and willingness to give us the opportunity to host this prestigious event."

As earlier reported, the Qatar Bowling Federation (QBF) withdrew as host of the 2007 World Ranking Masters, which should originally take place in Doha, from April 30 through May 6. Three countries wanted to step in and have sent an application to the World Tenpin Bowling Association (WTBA), the USA, Finland and Indonesia. The WTBA decided in favour of the Kegel/USBC bid.