3-Cushion
ZUNDERT - The top 3 has been out of reach for Barry van Beers, in spite of his often fierce starts. The stumbling block in the Zundert Christmas tournament is that stage where the young man from Brabant loses his top form in the deciding moments. Getting across that line is what characterizes the top echelon.
Can it be different this time? Can Barry van Beers, in this year when he was able to really hurt big names with high runs and averages, play for the podium places?
He had a promising, or rather a spectacular start in front of his home crowd in Den Hoek, where sixteen players showed up for the qualifying stages, to compete for eight places in the quarter finals. Just look at his first result, against one of the Belgians who was a star player on the world stage this last half season.
Barry van Beers-Eddy Leppens: 50-18 in 17 innings!
Two years ago, van Beers even held Caudron to a draw, and he made the quarter finals in spite of his loss against Glenn Hofman, only to be harshly beaten by... Eddy Leppens. This time the shoe was on the other foot, and Barry played his way on to an impressive win: ten in 4 innings, followed by a run of ten, some smaller runs to make it 40 in 11, and a finish of 50 in 17. By far the best match of the first day, and it shook up the flight with Tayfun Tasdemir and Glenn Hofman, who ended their match 50-30 to the Turk, in 31.
Dave Christiani and Jean van Erp played in the final evening session, and drew after a long and hard-fought battle: 50-50 in 33. Roland Forthomme on the other table beat Frans van Kuyk 50-42 in 29.
It means that in this group, where two rounds have been played, Dave Christiani is on top with three points and 1.538, ahead of Jean van Erp with three points and 1.408. Three players will decide who advances, Frans van Kuyk is out of it after two losses. Dave Christiani started by beating Forthomme (50-41), Jean van Erp beat Van Kuyk, who was ahead for most of the match (40-23), but hit a dry spell in the end.
The two winners from the first round made it an interesting evening encounter. At 44-43 Christiani ran six but missed match ball. Van Erp also ran six, to finish, but Christiani equalized from the spots.
Roland Forthomme (two points, 1.639) plays Jean van Erp tomorrow and has his fate in his own hands. Christiani only needs a draw against van Kuyk.
Three Belgian current or former world champions started their tournament off well. Frédéric Caudron beat his illustrious countryman Martin Spoormans, who sometimes manages to give the maestro a hard time, but was now put in his place (50-24 in 25).
Eddy Merckx was head and shoulders better than Gerwin Valentijn (50-36 in 31, run of 12) and Jef Philipoom would not be denied against Peter Ceulemans, who was first outscored 26-12 (also a run of 12) and from 43-19 (19) had to concede a 50-30 loss in 26 innings.
Jean Paul de Bruijn was triumphant in his orange battle with Raimond Burgman. The two national heavyweights, who usually operate in Dick Jaspers' shadow, did not produce a close finish though. The man from Zeeland had already made the difference in the first half of the match, and passed the finish line unthreatened in 24 innings.