Kuhn retains title as 'legend' Oldfield claims men's crown

The 10th Eden Leisure Malta Senior Open drew to a close at the SuperBowl on Sunday.

The men's title was claimed by ex-Team England player, and now legend, Ron Oldfield while Hildegard Kuhn, of Italy, successfully defended her 2006 crown by winning the women's final in high-scoring style.

Malta's best performance came in the women's competition, with Josephine Borg placing a good 13th among a tough 56-strong division.

John Balani was 42nd, which was Malta's best showing in the men's category.

After winning the 2006 Senior Open, Sweden's Christer Danielsson went on to win the European Seniors Tour and is currently also leading the tour standings for 2007.

He was always in the reckoning during this year's tournament, placing between second and sixth throughout the three qualifying rounds while Germany's Hermann Wimmer stayed in charge of the men's classifications.

Also in contention were Roger Pieters (Belgium), Oldfield (England), Torbjorn Karlsson (Sweden), Stig Hermansson (Sweden), Utz Dehler (Germany) and Stewart Meadus (Canada).

That was the order of qualification for the penultimate 'Round Robin' stage, in which a system of bonus points per game was incorporated.

Danielsson won six of seven head-to-head encounters, and was consistently over 200, peaking with a brilliant 259. This meant the Swede made the top four in first place. Wimmer won four from seven and went through in second place, followed by Pieters and Oldfield.

Stepladder match one saw 'Ronnie O' oust ex-world champion Pieters with a solid 245-206 victory. He then went on to beat Wimmer 225-193.

The final was a repeat of the 2006 showdown in which Danielsson had beaten Oldfield 257-198.

It was a daunting task for the Englishman as the pair matched each other frame for frame, actually finishing with a scratch tie of 217-all. However, Oldfield's nine-pin age bonus handed him the title.

Kuhn benchmark

The women's division was led by Finland's Hannele Uotila, who improved from seventh place to top the standings for the top-eight stage.

She was joined by Jan Hodge (England), Brenda Pratt (England), Sonja Carlsson Ostlund (Sweden), Liz Pond (England), Farida Pascoal-Blom (Holland), Kuhn (Italy) and Ewa Krantz (Sweden).

The Finn kept her top placing through the seven round robin matches, winning five of them and rolling five 200+ games to pick up some valuable bonus points and book her place in the final. She was joined in the stepladder by Hodge, Kuhn and Krantz.

Kuhn made light work of beating Krantz in the opening match, winning it 224-172 to make the semi-final against Hodge.

The Englishwoman's luck ran out against the in-form Italian, Kuhn qualifying for the final against Uotila with a top class 169-236 victory.

Kuhn also made the final game look too easy, never troubled over the ten frames, winning it 172-247 to be the first ever bowler to retain the Senior Open title.