Hannah Masterson of Ireland and Lukas Jelinek of the Czech Republic lead the European Championship of Champions after the first day of qualifying at Rollhouse Bilkent in Ankara.
At the ECC, the reigning national men’s and women’s champions compete, with the defending ECC champions also automatically qualified. Jelinek captured ECC title last year as well.
Both divisions bowled their first block of eight games on Wednesday, the women in the morning and the men in the afternoon. The field has 31 women and 34 men.
Women: Masterson pulls clear
Masterson opened with 258 and never dropped below 193. She finished the block with 1,784, a 223.0 average, and leads by 173 pins.
England's Verity Crawley is second with 1,611 (201.4) after a strong finish of 242, 199 and 237. Masterson and Crawley are the only two women averaging over 200.
Alexandra Giannadaki of Greece is third with 1,559. Host nation bowler Gülhanım Birinci is fourth with 1,549, helped by a 255 in game five, and Finland's Emma Palermaa is fifth with 1,545.
Germany's Nadine Meier had two of the best games of the morning, 252 and 254, and sits sixth with 1,528.
Kristina Sramkova of Slovakia holds 12th place, the last spot for Saturday, with 1,488. Norway's Mia Linnea Lillegiare is 13th, 23 pins behind.
Qualification Leaderboard
Top 12 standings after qualification:
Men: Jelinek edges Teece
The men's race is much closer. Jelinek averaged 226.4 for 1,811, with a 268 in game five and a 253 to close. His lowest game was 193.
England's Raymond Teece is 15 pins back with 1,796 after finishing with 269. That puts both English players in second place after day one.
Christopher Sloan of Ireland is third with 1,758. He bowled the high game of the day, a 279 in game two.
Behind them, three players are separated by four pins: Aleks Szczepaniak of Poland (1,727), Robin Ilhammar of Sweden (1,725) and Mathias Danielsen Otting of Norway (1,723).
Scoring was high in the afternoon, with 15 men averaging 200 or more. Spain's Jesus Daniel Briceno holds 12th place with 1,637 (204.6). Simon Hrusovsky of Slovakia is five pins behind him and Turkey's Tuna Böncü seven.
Qualification Leaderboard
Top 12 standings after qualification:
What's next
Thursday is mixed doubles, games 9 to 16, which also count toward the singles standings. Block 2, games 17 to 24, follows on Friday.
After 24 games, the top 12 men and women move on to Saturday's eight-game round, followed by best-of-three semifinals and finals.
Results are updated on the ECC 2026 standings page, and the games are streamed on BowlStream.
