26th November, Las Vegas: Xander van Mazijk of Netherlands surprised a strong field to lead the Men's Singles opening squad of the 2017 World Bowling Championships ahead of Puerto Rico's Israel Hernandez in second, Germany's Tobais Boerding and Denmark's Thomas Larsen joint-third.

van Mazijk got off the mark with a brilliant 246 to lead Samir Daou of Curacao by four pins. Costa Rica's Toscani Luconi and Sweden's Pontus Andersson also started off well with 238 and 235 for third and fourth spots.

The 26-year-old Dutch extended his lead slightly to 11 pins as Israel Hernandez quickly move into second position after rolling 232 and 223 in his first two games. Hernandez step up his pace with another superb 254 in the third game to take over the running.

2016 U.S. Open champion, Francois Lavoie of Canada shot a big game of 264 to leapfrog into second position and trailed the leader by six pins as van Mazijk slipped down to third despite knocking down 214 in his third game.

van Mazijk added 224 in the fifth game to regain the lead with Larsen improving to take up second position. Hernandez suffered a lowly 173 to slip into third behind the Dane. Germany's Tobais Boerding made good progress and was fourth.

The Dutch ended with a superb 227 to lead the squad with 1373. Hernandez was the strongest finisher with 258 to take up second with 1361. Larsen and Boerding tied third position on 1319. Andersson rounded out the top five with 1309 while Lavoie and Johnson were unable to finish in the top four.

The Men's Singles second squad will bowl their six-games preliminaries after lane maintenance and the combined scores of both the squads will determine the top 4 advancing to the Semi-finals to be staged tomorrow, November 26.

Photos by Terence Yaw in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.