For the first time in Professional Bowlers Association history, bowling fans will have an opportunity to watch two championships decided in a single day Sunday when the Bayer Viper Open airs on ESPN followed by live online coverage of the inaugural Xtra Frame Tour Cheetah Open presented by Ebonite.
The Bayer Viper Open is the first of four PBA “animal pattern” championships conducted during the PBA World Series of Bowling at South Point Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. ESPN will air the finals at 3 p.m. ET (noon PT).
The Cheetah Open is the first of four Xtra Frame Tour events that will be covered live, exclusively on the PBA’s online bowling channel. Sunday’s coverage from Fountain Bowl in Fountain Valley, Calif., begins with a six-game round of head-to-head match play for the top 24 qualifiers at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) followed by a seven-game match play round at 4:30 p.m. ET (1:30 p.m. PT). The top four will advance to the Cheetah Open stepladder finals at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT).
Mike Fagan of Dallas, a two-time PBA Tour champion, will head the field of four for the eliminator-format finals of the Viper Open. Fagan averaged 242.36 for 14 qualifying games to advance to the finals. He’ll bowl against England’s Stuart Williams, Sean Rash of Montgomery, Ill., and Ildemaro Ruiz of Venezuela for the Viper title.
Eliminator-format finals feature three one-game rounds. All four players bowl the opening game, with the lowest-scoring player after each game being eliminated. Fagan, 31, is a nine-year PBA Tour veteran who won his last title in the 2010 One A Day Dick Weber Open, held at Fountain Bowl. Rash, 28, is a four-time PBA Tour winner who is seeking his first title since the 2007 USBC Masters. Williams and Ruiz are making their second PBA television appearances. Neither has won a PBA Tour title.
The Xtra Frame Tour Cheetah Open presented by Ebonite gets underway on Saturday with nine qualifying games that will reduce the estimated field of 150 players to 24 for Sunday’s head-to-head match play competition. Saturday’s qualifying rounds also will be webcast live on Xtra Frame.
Eugene McCune of Munster, Ind., won the 2010 Cheetah Open during the PBA World Series of Bowling at South Point Lanes in Las Vegas, nipping Norm Duke of Clermont, Fla., 238-237, in the title match. But Fagan won the last event hosted by Fountain Bowl, defeating Walter Ray Williams Jr. of Ocala, Fla., 241-213, for the title.
The winners of both events Sunday will earn berths in the Round of 36 for the end-of-season PBA Tournament of Champions, April 8-15, at Red Rock Lanes in Las Vegas.
To watch the Cheetah Open, bowling fans must subscribe to Xtra Frame. One-month subscriptions are available for $7.99 and full-year subscriptions are $64.99. To sign up, visit pba.com and click on the Xtra Frame logo.