May 18, 2025 Nolan Hughes

EJ Tackett and Jesper Svensson advanced to the PBA Playoffs Championship.

Tackett defeated Graham Fach, while Svensson eliminated Chris Via in the semifinals at Strobl Arena inside Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, Mich.

Tackett and Fach will return to Strobl Arena for the live championship match, featuring a Race-to-Three format, on May 24 at 2:30pm Eastern time on FOX.

Svensson will look to avenge his defeat in last year’s PBA Playoffs championship match, just as he did in the Storm Lucky Larsen Masters last season.

First, Svensson will have to get through Tackett, the front-runner for this season’s PBA Player of the year honor.

Tackett earned the top seed for the PBA Playoffs, which featured the top 12 players in the tour’s competition points. In fact, Tackett earned more points (34,690) than second place Andrew Anderson (18,120) and third place Jason Belmonte (15,365) combined.

Fach, who qualified fourth with points, earned a bye to the quarterfinals along with Tackett, Anderson and Belmonte. Svensson, who qualified seventh, competed in Round 1 along with the fifth through 12th qualifiers.

All matches leading up to the championship were Race-to-Two matches.

To set up their semifinal match, Tackett defeated Anthony Simonsen and Fach bested two-time PBA Playoffs champion Kyle Troup in the quarterfinals.

Fach discussed his struggles to carry consistently after his quarterfinal win over Troup, noting that he has yet to bowl a game above 210 in his three televised games in Strobl Arena this season.

That trend continued for the Canadian southpaw as Tackett, the two-time reigning and three-time career PBA Player of the Year, cruised to a Game 1 victory of 250-193.

Tackett struck on nine of 11 shots across the dual oil patterns, which featured the 37-foot Bat on the left lane and the 44-foot Hardwick on the right lane. Despite the significant margin of victory, Tackett did not allow himself a moment of contentment. 

“The only thing that a 1-0 lead ever makes you feel is ‘I am guaranteed to not lose,’” Tackett said of the Race-to-Two points format. “All winning the first game does is give you that little bit of security that, no matter what, I'm going to have four shots (in a roll-off) to be able to try to win this thing.”

In Game 2, Tackett and Fach combined for just one strike through four frames and Fach led 66-65.

As Fach desperately sought to find a path to strike, Tackett connected with strikes on six of his next seven shots, leaving only a 7-10 split in between, to rally for a 210-190 victory.

A triumph over a left-handed player in Strobl Arena is nothing new to Tackett. In the 2024 PBA World Championship finals, Tackett defeated four left-handers, including Fach and Svensson, to climb the stepladder and win the major title.

“I don't think it has anything to do with execution or even ball choice,” said Tackett, referring to the left-handed players’ inability to string strikes in Strobl Arena. “They just have not been able to get the corners to fall down. If I was their ball rep, I would have no idea what to tell them to be perfectly honest. Maybe to try something out of the box, which I'm sure they probably have. I don't know what to tell them to try to get the corners out.”

Tackett will look to claim his fifth title of the season over yet another southpaw in Svensson in the championship match. He would also earn the $100,000 top prize and raise his season earnings to $469,540.

With a win, Tackett would position himself within striking distance of Troup’s single-season record of $496,900 with three title events remaining this season.

“There's a long way to go to even remotely talk about that in my opinion,” Tackett said. “It's a long road ahead for that to even be possible. All I can do is show up, do my best and hoist some trophies. That kind of stuff always takes care of itself.”

Svensson prevailed in his semifinal match over Via in two games, winning 202-186 and 248-172.

The Swedish left-hander previously shared Fach’s struggles to string strikes on lanes 10-11 in Strobl Arena. He won his previous two matches over Jakob Butturff and Andrew Anderson while averaging just 197 and shooting a high game of 205. 

Svensson said after his quarterfinal win over Anderson that he had some thinking to do in order to fix his scoring issues.

“Sooner or later, I’m going to get run over if I keep bowling scores like this,” Svensson said.

It looked like more of the same in Game 1 as Svensson left five single-pins en route to shooting 202. However, Via’s split in his 10th frame allowed Svensson to escape with the first point.

Perhaps tasting a berth in the championship, Svensson finally broke through in Game 2 and struck on his first six shots. He finished with 248 as Via’s struggles continued to mount.

“It's probably my best performance so far in the playoffs,” Svensson said. “I made a little move in the second game, and that was perfect so I got off to a good start there. It was a must-win for Chris at that point, so to be able to come out and put some heat on him early probably helped a lot in that second game.”

Svensson, who won the PBA Tournament of Champions last month, will look to win his second consecutive title this season.

The only players to have won back-to-back titles since Svensson also did so in 2020 are Tackett (three times) and Simonsen.

“I'm looking forward to it, first off,” Svensson said of facing Tackett. “To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best and EJ is clearly the best bowler in the world right now. It’s definitely a brutal challenge, but he's human, just like I am, and I’ve got pretty good mojo right now. I feel comfortable.”

PBA Playoffs TV Schedule and Results

Semifinals
No. 1 EJ Tackett def. No. 4 Graham Fach, 2-0 (250-193, 210-190)
No. 7 Jesper Svensson def. No. 6 Chris Via, 2-0 (202-186, 248-172)

Championship - airing May 24 at 2:30pm ET | FOX (live)
No. 1 EJ Tackett vs. No. 7 Jesper Svensson