28th November, Hong Kong: EJ Tackett of Bluffton, Ind. and Singles Semi-finals topseed, Andrew Anderson of Holly, Mich., regained the lead for Team USA after the duo won the third squad of the Singles preliminaries at the 2018 CGSE • Million Tinkle World Men Championships.

Singles Semi-finals fourth-seed, Dan MacLelland of Canada almost rolled the third perfect game of the championship but ended with 299 in his opening game as his partner and 2018 World Championships Masters gold medallist, Francois Lavoie shot 200 to take the early lead with 499.

Tackett and Anderson did well to take up second, 41 pins behind the Americans. Markus Jansson and Pontus Andersson of Sweden was third with 454 while a further seven pins was Finland's Kimmo Lehtonen and Jari Ratia in fifth.

The Canadian pair added 448 in the second game to remain in the lead as USA responded with 449 to stay close in second. The Swedes and Finns dropped off slightly as the all-lefty pair of Choi Bokeum and Hong Haesol of Korea made up grounds.

The new leader added two consistent fourth and fifth game of 443 and 449 to extend their lead to 90 pins and poised to overhaul overnight leader, Malaysia. The pair needed ony 219 or more which they went on to end the squad with 426 to become the new leader with 2756.

Canada recovered with 411 and 427 and needed 309 or more to surpass Malaysia. MacLelland and Lavoie ended with an identical score of 426 to finish second to USA and claimed second overall with 2666. Adrian Ang and Tun Ameerul Hakim settled for third overall with 2596.

Squad 1 leader, Jakob Butturff and Singles Semi-finalists, Kyle Troup hung on to fourth spot with 2549. Finland, who was third in this squad, missed the top four by 20 pins with 2529. Squad 2 second-placed, Colombia dropped out into sixth position with 2512.

With the fourth and final squad left and the cut in fourth spot averaging only 212, this could well go up to as much as 215 especially with several strong pairs in Squad 4 notably, Chris Barnes and Tommy Jones of USA, Manuel Otalora and Andres Gomez of Colombia, and Park Jongwoo and Kim Kyungmin of Korea.