The too-close-to-call chase for 2012-13 PBA Player of the Year honors resumes in Japan Nov. 28-30 when 30 PBA players compete in the 27th Round1 Japan Cup at Minami Suna Round1 Bowling Center in Tokyo.

The top 16 PBA members who qualified for the Japan Cup based upon competition points earned during the past season include Jason Belmonte, Wes Malott, Sean Rash, Pete Weber, Chris Loschetter, Scott Norton, Bill O'Neill, Parker Bohn III, Tommy Jones, Mika Koivuniemi, Stuart Williams, Dan MacLelland, Chris Barnes, Jason Sterner, Mike Fagan and Norm Duke.

Four players invited by the Japan Cup organizing committee include Osku Palermaa, Rhino Page, Walter Ray Williams Jr. and Amleto Monacelli. Ten additional PBA members will participate in a Pro Tour Qualifier to try to earn berths in the tournament: Ronnie Russell, Ryan Ciminelli, E.J. Tackett, Josh Blanchard, Anthony LaCaze, Jake Peters, Tom Hess, Julio Cesar Blancas, Humberto Vazquez and John Furey.

First prize will be roughly $60,000. Koivuniemi is defending champion, a two-time winner and one of seven past champions in the field. Other past winners include Bohn (4 times), Jones (3), Weber (2), Monacelli (2), W.R. Williams (2) and Barnes (1).

The 2012-13 PBA Tour season concludes with three PBA International Tour events in the Middle East in December: the Abu Dhabi WBT tournament at Thalifa International Bowling Centre, Abu Dhabi, UAE, Nov. 30-Dec. 6; the Qatar Open at Qatar Bowling Centre in Doha, Qatar, Dec. 4-10, and the 7th International Kingdom Open at Universal Bowling Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 11-16. All three events will be World Bowling Tour points competitions and each will award PBA International Tour titles if the winner is a PBA member.

PBA Tour competitor John Szczerbinski, a former Wichita State University All-American and member of the 2013 PBA League champion New York City WTT KingPins, is headed to Siberia with fellow Team USA member Danielle McEwan of Stony Point, N.Y., trying to win QubicaAMF World Cup titles for the United States.

Szczerbinski, North Tonawanda, N.Y., and McEwan, who earned their World Cup berths by winning the 2013 USBC Team USA Trials, have competed in previous World Cups. Szczerbinski finished fifth in 2010 in Toulon, France, and McEwan finished fourth last year in Wroclaw, Poland. The 2014 World Cup is being held at the Sibiryak Centre, a state-of-the-art 32-lane recreational facility in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

The 49th QubicaAMF World Cup will include bowlers from more than 80 countries. All rounds of the event, which begins Monday and ends on Sunday, Nov. 24, will be webcast live on bowl.com’s BowlTV.