3-Cushion
SCHILTIGHEIM – The number of hopefuls in flight D has been reduced to three, as Dick Jaspers defeated Choong Bok Lee and Sung Won Choi ended the chances of Eddy Leppens. Frédéric Caudron and Dick Jaspers, who meet tomorrow (10.00 uur) are the frontrunners.
Choong Bok Lee and Sung Won Choi will only have a chance to go through if Jaspers loses his two remaining matches (Caudron and Choi).
Frédéric Caudron is comfortably in the lead in this group, as Jaspers lost a point to Leppens in a high quality match. The Dutchman recorded a solid win today against Korean Lee, who had a disastrous start and only in the latter stages did some scoring.
Eddy Leppens was counting his chips this morning, after his splendid performance against Jaspers. But in his match with Sung Won Choi, the Korean with the arm injury, the Belgian was nowhere near the player of the earlier round.
,,I did not play well at all in the beginning, picked it up a bit later, but could not finish’’, he dryly analyzed.
Choi finished in 30 innings, but barring a miracle, he is out of it also, due to two earlier losses.
The most likely scenario is, that the top match betweeen Frédéric Caudron and Dick Jaspers will decide about the 1st and 2nd spot in the group. The two top players met on Thursday as well, for the French league. Jaspers won that match by a small margin.
Caudron has started his Agipi Masters with much show of force, he beat Leppens in 17 innings and Choi in 22, giving him an average of 2.564. Jaspers started well but dropped a bit because he used 27 innings against Choong Bok Lee.
,,It was not as fluent, because I could not get a high run going’’, he said, referring to a stage in the match where all positions were awkward.
His opponent, truth be told, was less than inspiring. Lee started with 5 open innings, and had a miserable 3 points after 8. From inning 13 on, the Korean started to fight back, but could not make a real impression, the match had been played.
Sung Won Choi distanced himself from Leppens with runs of 10 and 7, but was also helped by his opponents lack of productivity. Leppens recorded no less than 9 open innings in his first 15 appearances at the table.