Martin Paulsson (pictured left) of Sweden put together a 1406 series, an average of 234.33, in the 8th qualifying squad Wednesday evening at Timeout Bowling Center in Istanbul, Turkey, to overtake the lead in the qualifying of the 9th Istanbul Bowling Open.

Paulsson, who won the gold medal in Doubles (with Mathias Ã…rup) at the 2010 Men's World Championships, started his six-game block with 214, 238 and 191 before he closed out strong with 279, 248 and 236 to overtake previous leader Tolga ÅžiÅŸmanoÄŸullar (right) of Turkey by five pins.

ÅžiÅŸmanoÄŸullar, who led the field of 98 players since the second squad, slipped to second place. He is followed by another five players, who all cracked the top 8 in Wednesday's Squads 7 & 8.

Daniel Vezis, a two-hander from Latvia, was next to Paulsson in Squad 8 with 1340 including a high game of 279 to leap into third place.

Fresh off qualifying for the Men's World Championships and the European Champions Cup, Alexey Parshukov (left) of Russia led Squad 7 with 1326 including high games of 279 and 259, good for fourth place overall. Paulsson and Parshukov both earned a 300 Euro bonus for winning a qualifying squad.

Places 5-7 belonged To Squad 8 bowlers. PBA Hall of Famer and three-time European Bowling Tour champion, Brian Voss (right), United States, sandwiched four games between 257 and 222 around two sub-200 games to take fifth place with 1318.

Alexander Johansson of Sweden was four pins behind with 1314 while Denmark's Frederik Øhrgaard (left) landed in seventh place further four pins back with 1310.

Gülhan Aksular (right), Turkey, is still the best of 23 women in the field, but fell from second to eighth place with 1295 including 48 pins handicap. The top eight players at the end of the qualifying will earn three byes.

David Orlanda, Romania, holds the 38th and last place to qualify directly for the finals with 1136 and an average of 189.33.

Qualifying continues Thursday, May 8, with Squads 9-12 scheduled to start at 9 a.m., 1, 5 and 9 p.m. Eastern European Summer Time (CEST +1).

The 9th Istanbul Bowling Open will be held from Saturday, May 3, through Sunday, May 11, at 20-lane Timeout Bowling Center in Istanbul, Turkey. The tournament is the sixth stop of the 2014 European Bowling Tour season and the second of six EBT "gold" tournaments, the second-highest of four categories.

Players will compete for total prize money of 60.000 Euro with 7.000 Euro going to the winner, 5.000 to the runner-up and 1.400 and 3.250 apiece to the third and fourth place finisher, respectively. Low to cash is 48th place worth 500 Euro.

Qualifying got underway on Saturday, May 3, and runs through Saturday, May 10 with the final qualifying Squad 20 scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern European Summer Time (CEST +1). Qualifying concludes with the one-game Desperado Squad 2 slated to start at Midnight.

Women receive 8 pins handicap each game (maximum score is 300), a standard on the European Bowling Tour.

Total 48 players - the top 38 qualifiers, two players of a separate leaderboard from Squads 1-4 plus the two players of Desperado Squad 1 and six players of Desperado Squad 2 - will advance to the finals on Sunday, May 11.

The top eight qualifiers earns three byes, qualifiers 9-18 get two byes, and qualifiers 19-28 receive a first-round bye.

The first five rounds of the final consist of four games from scratch. The field will be trimmed to 38, 28, 18, 8 and then four players, who will determine the champion in head-to-head matches with the two-game total determining the winner.

The top-seeded player after Round 5 bowls No. 4 seed and No. 2 takes on No. 3 in the semifinals. The winners advance to the title match while the losers will be seeded third and fourth according to their seeding after Round 5.

The 2014 European Bowling Tour features 20 tournaments in 14 countries. In its 15th season, the EBT consists of two Platinum, six Gold, three Silver and nine Satellite tournaments. The total prize fund exceeds one million Euro.

The top 50 men and the top 50 women in each event receive ranking points. Those points will be tabulated throughout the season to determine the top 12 men and top 12 women, who will compete in the eighth EBT Masters July 6, 2015 in Asti, Italy.