3-Cushion
ANTEQUERA - The Spanish top players in three cushion stand in absolute awe of Dani Sanchez' fabulous honor roll. The triple world champion rarely loses a tournament in Spain and was the best again in Antequera near Malaga this weekend. It was his 45th title in a Spanish tournament, his first win was in 1989. The highlight was a blistering start in the semi-final against Sergio Jimenez when Sánchez started with nine from the break followed by eighteen in the second inning.
The tournament in the southern Spanish town started off with 86 players and counted for the national rankings. On the final day, Dani Sanchez, Ruben Legazpi, Sergio Jimenez and Javier Palazón remained for the podium spots.
Dani Sánchez showed his great form in the semis: the impressive start against Sergio Jimenez (27-4 in two innings) led him to victory in twelve innings (40-11). That was, ahead of Ruben Legazpi's thirteen innings win, the best match of the tournament.
The final was a match between Sánchez and Legazpi, who defeated Javier Palazón 40-29 in 27 in the other semifinal. Dani Sánchez bested his last rival with another great start (19-0), saw his opponent come back to 22-9 in 8 and 32-25 in 20 and eventually triumphed with ten points 40-30 in 26 innings.
Sanchez leads the Spanish ranking, second is Ruben Legazpi, third and fourth Javier Palazón and Sergio Jimenez. The winner played 1.800 general average and is looking forward to the World Cup in Porto that started with the preliminaries today.
Sánchez is among the top twelve of the world and starts his World Cup on Thursday.
The final ranking:
1 Dani Sánchez
2 Rubén Legazpi
3 Javier Palazón
3 Sergio Jiménez
5 David Martínez
6 Antonio Ortiz Torrent
7 Jesús Jiménez
8 Raúl Cuenca
9 Antonio Montes
10 Alfonso Legazpi
