Carom
BRUGES - The Belgian top four players in three cushion are missing in the final round at the third BTS tournament in Bruges. Eddy Merckx, Frédéric Caudron, Eddy Leppens and Roland Forthomme were eliminated in the preliminaries. Three players have already qualified for the semi-finals: Peter De Backer, Ronny Daniels and Kenny Miatton. The fourth player will be known after the last qualifying round tonight (Thursday).
Eddy Merckx was brilliantly beaten by one of the dark horses in Bruges. The Belgian number two in the rankings finished his match against Rudy de Laet on 40-31 in 26 innings. De Laet sprinkled with a nine from the equalizer. In the shootout, Merckx started with three, De Laet answered with four and qualified for the next round.
The veteran, playing in the league for Op de Meir, is showing up tonight with three other players for the final place in the semi-finals. His opponent is Francis Forton. Henk Blauwblomme, who plays for his home crowd, faces Kurt Ceulemans.
Frédéric Caudron was outplayed by Kenny Miatton, who won the European championships at the small table last week. He defeated Caudron in Bruges 40-34 in 28 innings. Eddy Leppens was smashed by Marc Dellaert in a downhill match he lost 40-19 in 37 innings!! Forthomme cancelled for his match, he preferred to play in Portugal.
Two BTS tournaments were played before the event at Royal Bruges. Eddy Leppens won both in Brussels (final against Forthomme, 40-20 in 16) and in Eeklo (final against Merckx, 40-38 in 31).
The semi-finals and finals in Bruges are on Wednesday (May 13). The final tournament will be played at Mister 100 in Lier.
The top sixteen of the rankings qualify for the Superprestige in Lommel.
The rankings before the tournament in Bruges:
1 Eddy Leppens 175 points, 1.797
2 Eddy Merckx 98, 1.749
3 Frédéric Cauron 67, 1.873
4 Roland Forthomme 64, 1.452
5 Jef Philipoom 58, 1.328
6 Peter Ceulemans 57, 1.398
7 Steven van Acker 55, 1.283
8 Kenny Miatton 45, 1.190.
The numbers nine to sixteen are Marco Janssen, Martin Spoormans Davy van Havere, Kurt Ceulemans, Frank de Groof, Francis Forton, Peter De Backer and Wesley Jaeger.