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Unseeded pair top Marstrand races

Holmberg has already clinched the 2001/2 tour

MARSTRAND, Sweden -- Two unseeded skippers have topped the leaderboard after the round-robin races of the Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand, Sweden.

Jesper Bank from the Swedish America's Cup Victory Challenge and Poland's Karol Jablonski of the MK Café match race team each recorded three wins on the second day of competition.

The Swedish Match Tour is the world's premier professional match racing sailing series and the Marstand race is the final event of the 2001/2 series.

The two unseeded skippers both ended with overall records of six wins and one loss to top the eight helmsmen.

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They now advance to a best-of-five race against the seventh and eighth seeded helmsmen, Russell Coutts of the Alinghi America's Cup Team and Denmark's Jes Gram-Hansen.

Bank faces fellow countryman Gram-Hansen and Coutts meets Jablonski and his MK Café team.

The two winners from this series progress to the quarterfinal with the top six seeded helmsmen.

Jablonski has America's Cup plans and would like to set up the first ever Polish America's Cup Challenge in 2006.

The top six seeds in Marstrand are Peter Holmberg from Oracle Racing USA, Magnus Holmberg from Victory Challenge Sweden, Ed Baird from the U.S., Jesper Radich from Denmark Dean Barker and Franco Pace from Team New Zealand.

Peter Holmberg has already wrapped up championship series with an unassailable lead of 40 points and secured the $60,000 first prize, but there is still $140,000 up for grabs at Marstrand.

The nine event 2002/3 series starts with the UBS Challenge in Newport, Rhode Island, U.S., July 27 to August 4 with a prize purse of $100,000.