Falzon Reale stuns favourite in final

Four Maltese tenpin bowlers recently travelled to Cyprus to compete in the Cockatoos Pafos Open.

The group was made up of Simon Burke, Mark Muscat, Tony Paris and Ray Falzon Reale. The latter went on to produce a brilliant performance and claim first place after an exhaustive final day.

An international field of 130 bowlers from nations such as England, Finland, Israel, Greece, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania took part.

Falzon Reale was 22nd in the qualifying round, bowling a good 198.5 average, to make it to the various final rounds on the second day of the tournament.

His position improved to fourth over the four games in round one of the final stages and he kept up the pace in the next set of four to place second among the top 16 competitors.

Falzon Reale retained his position after another eight games as the field was further trimmed to the top four who contested the stepladder finals.

At this point, only Israel's Or Aviram, currently ranked 14th in Europe, had succeeded in staying ahead of the Maltese bowler.

Another Israeli, Gal Shemer, won the first stepladder match against England's Rob Thurlby to set up a match against Falzon Reale in the penultimate match.

The Maltese easily beat him 192-151 to advance to the final against the formidable Aviram.

The Israeli favourite appeared unable to find a match-winning line in the final as Falzon Reale took the games with an incredible nonchalance. He cruised to an easy 408-333 victory to claim the tournament title and walk off with an impressive trophy, not to mention the 5,600-euro first prize.