By BILL SNIER
FAIRLAWN — Jesper Svensson thought he had let an opportunity slip away Thursday morning.
After going 8-0 and holding a 299-pin lead on the field following Wednesday’s opening round of match play at the PBA Tournament of Champions, the 30-year-old Swedish two-handed lefty lost it all in Round 2 of match play by going 1-7 to fall 22 pins behind four-time 2025 winner EJ Tackett into second.
“I just had a fantastic start and it gave me a big boost,” said Svensson, who owns 12 PBA titles and was fifth following 18 qualifying games. “But it was the exact opposite in the second round this morning.
“Whatever I did, I just couldn’t win a match.”
All was right again in Svensson’s world during the final round of match play at AMF Riviera Lanes on Thursday night as he went 6-0 before dropping his final two matches to earn the No. 1 seed overall for Sunday’s championship round.
Svensson, who became the youngest player to ever win the TOC in 2016 in Shawnee, Okla., finished with 10,334 total pinfall while averaging a tourney high 235.33 over 42 games to ensure he will have to bowl just one game for the title Sunday (3 p.m. on FOX).
“I was pretty upset after the morning block. I felt I had such a good advantage coming in and it went away in the matter of two games,” said Svensson, who has reached the stepladder in the TOC before at AMF Riviera and finished 131 pins ahead of the field. “I’m happy I bounced back from that and came back stronger.
“I got back on the horse tonight and won my first six matches to put me in good position. It’s just crazy how it goes in these runs in match play. I’m really happy with the way I’ve performed so far. But the work doesn’t stop here. I’ve still got one game to go.”
Joining Svensson during Sunday’s stepladder will be Urbana left-hander Graham Fach (10, 203), four-time 2025 winner and righty EJ Tackett (10,076) and Munster, Ind., right-hander Kevin McCune (9,961), who put on a run during the position round to secure his spot.
In the unique format, five other bowlers will participate in an opening stepladder Saturday (5 p.m. on FS1) to determine the No. 5 seed for Sunday’s show.
The opening match Saturday will have a pair of lefties — No. 8 Matt Sanders against No. 9 Patrick Hanrahan — against each other. The winner will then face right-hander AJ Johnson, with the final two participants also being lefties — No. 6 Jakob Butturff and No. 5 Keven Williams.
McCUNE’S RUN
McCune, who was celebrating his 26th birthday and coming off a run to the stepladder finals at last week’s Players Championship in Michigan, was the leader after Round 2 of qualifying at the TOC. He was sitting sixth after 41 games, 42 pins behind Butturff and 43 behind Williams, heading into the one-game position round.
“That last game, I just wanted to knock 10 pins down as much as I could and hopefully have the opportunity in the 10th frame to make the big show,” said McCune when asked what was in his mind during that final game.
McCune then went out and struck on nine of his final 10 shots, including the final six in a row. With his father — PBA champion Eugene McCune — cheering from the front row, McCune stopped Butturf 242-157. Coupling that with Williams’ 211-204 loss to Tackett, McCune earned a spot in Sunday’s show by 25 pins.
“I put myself in position all day so I would have a chance. I finally gave myself that chance and what happened, happened,” said McCune, whose only PBA title came in the 2023 Players Championship.
“Pair to pair it was so drastic … I don’t know what happens. Sometimes you bowl a good game, sometimes you bowl a 170. Out of nowhere, it just happens, especially in this place. End to end, you just don’t know. You just have to get as much as you can every game and whatever happens, happens.”
Fach had struggled during his final two games of the morning session, losing his final two matches and saying that a “reset” was in order.
But in the evening, the 33-year-old lefty and Canadian native found his groove again, finishing with a tournament-best 19-5 record while averaging 229.3 — third high overall.
“I’ve kind of bowled better in the afternoon squads and I was hoping that would continue,” said Fach, who won his second career PBA Tour title in the 2025 season-opener in Delaware. “Winning matches was the biggest thing. I didn’t knock down the most pins, but I won the most matches … and all those pins add up.
“I was in good position going into the shift and I wasn’t going to focus on just those two (morning) games. Just focus on the tournament as a whole.”
Tackett, who is well ahead in the points race in seeking his third straight PBA Player of the Year honor and fourth overall, called the match-play rounds “weird.”
“Two of the three on the right were really hard, and the one that was easy on the left was hard on the right,” said Tackett, who led the 18-game qualifier with 4,348 (241.56 average), about the lane conditions in match play. “It was weird how the runs played and how they developed.
“It was just one of those things were I was fortunate enough to take advantage of the good pairs. Some stuff went wrong and some stuff went right. They were tough conditions, but I was able to grind it out.”:
Tackett is looking for his third major title of the season, which would tie him with Jason Belmonte, who did it in 2017. There also are plenty of other individual awards possible for the 32-year-old Bluffton, Ind., righty.
“I can’t sit and dwell on what it could mean. All that matters is what is right in front of me, and that’s winning the Tournament of Champions,” Tackett said. “If I do that, all the other stuff will take care of itself.”
OPENING STEPLADDER
Williams, a 31-year-old Roseville, Calif., lefty, will need just one win Saturday to advance to Sunday’s finals. His best finish this season prior to the TOC was 16th place.
“Having as bad a year as I did, it was hard working through the mental and the physical (sides of the game),” Williams told www.pba.com. “I could never really piece the two together. I’ve never been in the position where I’m at mentally. I’m usually as confident as anyone, but I don’t quite have the confidence right now. I’ve had to battle through that and it shows on my spare game. I gave away 200 pins in spares.
“With all that being said, we have a chance and we can get it done. I still like my chances because I’ve made a lot of good shots this week and I typically bowl really well on TV. Hopefully we can just piece it together and get it done.”
Hanrahan, a 27-year-old Wichita, Kan., two-handed lefty, has seen this act before. As the No. 9 seed, he will have to win four matches each day to claim the title, starting with the opener Saturday against Matt Sanders, a 31-year-old Evansville, Ind., two-handed lefty seeking his second career title.
“The last block was super ugly, but I found a good last two games to stay in. Anything can happen, especially being the first guy on the show,” Hanrahan, who owns two career titles, told www. pba.com.
In the 2023 TOC, which featured 17 players advancing to a three-round stepladder finals, Hanrahan was the last man in and fell to Francois Lavoie 214-210 in the opening match. It was the year Belmonte won six matches to claim his fourth TOC title.
“You pop in there, maybe you get a good look and you stay hot for a couple of games, beat a bunch of guys and end up on the second show,” Hanrahan said. “Right now, the goal is to try and win the first stepladder and see what happens.”
NOTEBOOK: Shawn Maldonado was the first player outside the cut, finishing 128 pins behind Hanrahan. PBA Hall of Famer Mika Koivuniemi, who turned 58 earlier this month, finished in 11th, followed by Darren Tang, Anthony Simonsen and BJ Moore. … A few tickets remain for Sunday’s main show and for Saturday’s telecast. Go to https://vivenu.com/seller/professional-bowlers-association-eyvv for information. … The final round of match play was the only round without a 300 game as eight were thrown during the week. … Ethan Fiore, last week’s Players winner, finished 24th with 9,101. Belmonte struggled during match play, dropping to 23rd with 9,354. … Two pre-tournament qualifiers — Matt Sweig and Bailey Mavrick — reached the top 24, but finish 19th and 21st, respectively. … Simonsen made a late run, getting as high as 11th. But games of 193 and 178 his final two games dropped him to 12th. … The PBA Hall of Fame will enshrine four new members — Sean Rash, Bill O’Neill, George Branham III and Dave Schroeder — into its special group Friday at the New Market Hilton in Fairlawn as the tournament takes a day off to celebrate.