Event News, General News
Young guns of bowling dominate day 1 of TPL Suncity Showdown
The Tenpin Premier League (TPL) Suncity Showdown saw a lot of talent on day one, with the likes of 30x PBA title winner Jason Belmonte, World Cup champion Bec Whiting, and defending TPL Champion Jarrod Longford up against the rising stars of Australian bowling.
They will join the gold and silver medallists from the TPL Wodonga Classic Langford and Grace Fahy as the top four heading into Sunday’s top-16 semifinal.
Blayne Fletcher, 25, from Queensland, and Rebekah Commane, 23, from Victoria, were two individual standouts, topping their round robin pools.
Both Fletcher and Commane said they were nervous going into today’s tournament and said they had no expectations of finishing first in their pool.
“I was a bit nervous as I haven’t had time to train with my studies at the moment,” Fletcher said.
“I had my expectations set pretty low, but I’m really stocked with where I finished up today. Bit of a cloud nine feeling but tomorrow is a new day, so I need to cool myself down and do something similar again,” he said
“If I am being completely honest I have been all over the place lately,” added Commane.
“We had a practice session yesterday that I struggled at but I knew I had to come out today with something brand new and I was confident I could do that, confident in my abilities. This morning I put polish on a phase 2 which I’ve never done before so I did that and my ball looked incredible and I’m really happy with how I did,” she said.
Having topped his pool ahead of Belmonte, Fletcher says he takes the victory “lightly.”
“He had some great shots against me in our match which was awesome, I was lucky enough to take the win in our match but Belmo can come out tomorrow 100x better – it’s scary, so we will see how it turns out,” he said
Preparing for tomorrow’s semi finals Fletcher knows it’s going to be a challenging round.
“I think the lanes are going to play themselves differently so I need to mentally prepare myself to make some big changes and hopefully those moves pay off.”
As for Commane, topping her pool today gives her the extra jump in her step heading into tomorrow’s semi finals.
“It feels pretty good, it gives me a bit of a confidence booster for tomorrow. So it’s just nice I could prove to myself my ability and it felt good today,” she said.
Commane said her most challenging game came against Whiting, being the only competitor she lost to in the round robin.
“My toughest competitor was Bec Whiting, I played her in game one, the only game I lost today. She also went 6 out of 7 wins like myself. So definitely someone I’m playing tomorrow and it’s going to be a good match.”
Coming into tomorrow’s semi finals Commane is aiming to bring the same energy bought in today’s round robin.
“I came in today with a good mindset, I was keen, motivated, excited, I just want to take how I went today and put it into tomorrow but not put too much pressure on myself.”
Sunday’s semi-finals will begin at 8am with the top 16 bowlers from Day 1.
The top eight will advance to the Super-8 Final at 2pm where they will play the fast-five format,
with scores from 4 full frames plus a standard 10th frame, with a maximum score of 150.
Watch the Super-8 final LIVE on the @tenpinpl Facebook Page and TPL YouTube account.
The 16-bowler semi-final will include:
Blayne Fletcher
Jason Belmote
David Porto
Adam Hayes
Rebekah Commane
Rebeca Whiting
Bec Martin
Sarah Pennicott
Grace Fahy
Alicia Melton
Jamie Maglieri
Emily Bottomley
Jarrod Langford
Jamie Robinson
Nixon Chan
Bernie Grueso
See all results HERE