3-Cushion
The decision in the Belgian-Korean group could have been fallen in the second round, but thanks to Eddy Leppens the battle is open again. The victory of the Belgian against Haeng Jik Kim (50-43 in 25 innings) raises the tension to a climax tonight.
Roland Forthomme won his second match at the other table: he defeated Jung-Han Heo 50-37 in 31. The Korean, who starred in this arena last year, is almost certainly out of the tournament. Forthomme is undefeated, but has to do another job tonight.
Three players on the top of the ranking fight for two tickets in next round tonight. Roland Forthomme plays against Haeng-Jik Kim in the final session of the group, Eddy Leppens meets Jung-Han Heo.
Forthomme gathered four matchpoints and averaged 1.612. That's the lowest average of the three candidates. Kim and Leppens have two match points, Kim has 1.788 and Leppens 1.696 average.
The pressure will be high tonight. Forthomme showed his excellent form only in the second part of the match against Heo. He made the decisive gap with runs of six, six and nine in the 26th, 27th and 28th inning, that brought him from 29-26 behind to a lead of 47-32.
Eddy Leppens took an early lead with a run of nine in the match against Kim (17-5), attacked another time with seven in the thirteenth inning (30-26) and ran away in the final stage, in which he was by far the best .