Recently-crowned Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) Player of the Year Walter Ray
Williams Jr. and defending champion Patrick Allen head a list of 20 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour
players who will compete in the DYDO Japan Cup 2010 April 22-25 in Tokyo. Qualifying will take
place at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel and match play at Tokyo Port Bowl.
It marks the 25th straight season that PBA Tour players have been invited to compete in the event
which also includes 91 Japan Professional Bowlers Association (JPBA) players and 33 amateurs.
In the 25 years that PBA players have been invited to the event it has been won 22 times by PBA
pros and twice by JPBA players.
The PBA players earned their invitation through their performances in the 2008-09 season. While the
invitational event ends the 2009-10 PBA Tour season, it has no bearing on season’s points races.
Allen won the 2009 Japan Cup, defeating 2008-09 Player of the Year Wes Malott, 247-214, last
April. The win marked Allen’s 13th PBA Tour title and third international title. He won the 2008
World Tenpin Bowling Association World Championship Doubles and Team titles in Bangkok as
a member of Team USA.
Joining Allen in the spotlight last year was fellow PBA Tour star Rhino Page, who threw the first
perfect game in Japan Cup TV finals history and the 20th televised perfect game in PBA history.
Page defeated Jeong Tae-Hwa of South Korea, 300-235, in the Round of 8. The perfect game
earned Page a $100,000 bonus, matching the most prize money ever awarded to a PBA player who
shot 300 on TV.
Allen will attempt to become the third player to successfully defend a Japan Cup. Tommy Jones won
back-to-back titles in 2004 and 2005 while Parker Bohn III won the Cup three consecutive years
from 1998-2000.
Williams is making his 25th consecutive Japan Cup appearance, making him the only player to have
appeared in every Japan Cup in its modern configuration. Williams has made seven championship
round appearances and won the event twice including a 289-236 win over Pete Weber in 2006
which broke the all-time PBA Tour titles record.
For the record, Page – the youngest PBA Tour player in the field – was two years old the first year
Williams bowled in the Japan Cup.
The 144-player field will bowl two six-game qualifying blocks at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel after
which there will be a cut to the top 48 players who will move to Tokyo Port Bowl for best-of-seven
-game match play eliminations to determine the top eight advancing to the championship round to
be televised exclusively in Japan.
From 1968-73, a handful of PBA pros competed in what was known as the Japan Gold Cup.
Winners from the Japan Gold Cup era include Don Johnson (1968), Dick Ritger (1969, ’70), Jack
Biondolillo (1971), Barry Asher (1972) and Don McCune (1973).
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