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Frédéric Caudron leads rank for the finals

08/28/2013

Published by frits bakker

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© © Harry van Nijlen/Kozoom photo
Eddy Merckx was by far the best in the last session

LOMMEL - The eight top players for the final get a day of rest in the Superprestige (a youth tournament is played today). On Thursday, the eight final players show up for the quarters in the Adelblerg theater in Lommel. Eddy Merckx Francis Forton qualified as last yesterday evening. The world champion was never in danger with victories over Francis Forton, Thomas Broux and Jef Philipoom. He finished second in the overall rank.

Frédéric Caudron leads the rank with six match points and 2.105 ahead of Merckx (1.666) and Forthomme (1.379). Francis Forton needed a win in his last evening match against young Thomas Broux and finished after scores of 21-14 (in 22), 28-17 (26) and 37-21 (33) in between with a winning strike: a nice bankshot in the 39th inning:  40-29.

Eddy Merckx kept his unbeaten status on the other table in a blistering fight with Jef Philipoom. The world champion and former world champion played on top of their level. Jef Philipoom led 23-14 in 7 innings after a run of nine, to keep his chances alive for qualification.

The gap was closed by Merckx in the tenth inning, when the title holder in the Superprestige scored a ten and lifted the score to 27-24.
Philipoom equaled one more time to 32-32, but then saw his opponent run away to 36-32, 38-33 and finally the 40-33 win in 19 innings.

Eddy Merckx qualified with six match points and 1,666 general second behind Frédéric Caudron. Francis Forton, who thanked his qualification mainly to the thrilling win against Jef Philipoom (40-39), closes the rank after four rounds of preliminaries.
Thursday, from 19.00, the quarterfinals will be played in two sessions.

The final score of the finalists:

1 Frédéric Caudron 6-2.105

2 Eddy Merckx 6-1.666

3 Roland Forthomme 6-1.379

4 Peter Ceulemans 4-1.909

5 Peter De Backer 4-1.520

6 Eddy Leppens 4-1.313

7 Steven van Acker 4-1.154

8 Francis Forton 4-1.044.

The matches:

Frédéric Caudron-Francis Forton

Eddy Merckx-Steven van Acker

Roland Forthomme-Eddy Leppens

Peter Ceulemans-Peter De Backer.

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