The 8th edition of the Eden Lesure Senior Open came to an end recently at the Eden SuperBowl, with the Men’s championship title being retained by defending Champion Torbjorn Halling from Sweden, while the Ladies’ competition was won by England’s Brenda Pratt.

Malta’s Doris Camilleri (Champion 2003) played another fine tournament, making it all the way to the penultimate Round Robin stage, finishing fifth, just short of making the last four and the Final stage.

Male Division

Malta’s participation was rather low this year, and the best male performance came from Sammy Borg, who missed out on qualification to round two in the most unlucky of circumstances. The top 72 of the 160+ male field qualified from the twelve-game first round, and Borg placed equal 72nd level on total pinfall, but going out due to an inferior final game thus giving way to Geoff Gardner from England.

Defending Champ Torbjorn Halling was bowling extremely well, and led the event after round one. He held onto his top spot throughout the four round two games, but was then overtaken in round three (top 36) by Owe Herrmann from Norway, and sole Canadian Stewart Meadus in second place.

The top 18 then played yet another four games in round four, in which Roger Pieters (Belgium, Malta Senior Champion 2002, World Champion, Helsinki 1987) also climbed into the top three, pushing Halling into fourth place. It was in the penultimate round robin stage (top 8) that Torbjorn really came into his own, winning all seven of his head-to-head encounters with no less that five 200+ games, peaking with a great 276. This put him straight back into the top spot, and he was to be joined in the stepladder finals by Herrmann, Ron Oldfield (Eng) in third and Meadus in fourth place.

There was a cagey start to the one-game final, but Halling began to take control as the frames rolled on, Winning it 220 - 192 to claim the grand prize, and make it two very well deserved titles in a row. Torbjorn has actually won three from the last five editions of the Senior Open, having also claimed the title in 2001.

Female Division

Doris Camilleri always enjoys playing in the Senior Open, and in fact won it in the 2003 edition, and has placed well in all three of her other attempts. This year’s edition saw her take the early lead ahead of over 60 female bowlers after six games, and then qualifying to round two (top 36) in sixth place. She improved to fourth after the second round, and was better again after round three (Top 18) when she lay third.

Then came the ladies’ round robin which was rather a low-scoring affair, in which Doris was very unlucky to only win two of her seven games, putting her fifth which left her out of the stepladder finals (top four) by just 68 pins.

The ladies’ finals were played between (in qualifying order) ; Jan Hodge (Eng), Barbro Hjerten (Swe), Ewa Kranta (Swe) and Brenda Pratt (Eng). Pratt and Kranta were first up, and the Englishwoman went through with a 169 - 185 victory over the Swede. She then met Hjerten in the semi-final which was close, but Brenda just scraped through with a 172 - 178 winner, setting the stage for an all-England final between herself and Jan Hodge.