3-Cushion
SCHILTIGHEIM - In the spotlights of the Kozoom cameras, with a live coverage on Eurosport, world class players, Marco Zanetti and Dick Jaspers, made a fantastic promotion for three-cushion. The Italian maestro demonstrated again that he is playing in a wonderful flow. He was 26 points down after a bad start, but grabbed victory at the gates of hell: 50-49 after a curious matchbal.
Dick Jaspers had the experience of a deja-vu: just like in his match against Frédéric Caudron, in the qualifying rounds, in which he was 44-7 on the lead, he now saw a comfortable score vanish like frost under the morning sun.
Marco Zanetti had a dramatic start with 9 misses in 14 innings, was trailing 38-12 in 15 innings, but like last week, in his last two matches in the Lausanne Billard Masters, the Italian had another magic sprint. He closed the gap to one point with two runs of 16 and 9 in the 15th and 16th inning.
The final phase, in front of a passionate and sympathetic audience, turned out into a thriller: Jaspers could not handle with the tension and stopped scoring: ten misses in his last fifteen innings. Marco Zanetti was not so much better in the last part.
Jaspers seemed on his way to the win with small runs of 2, 1 and 4, bringing the score to 48-45. The Dutchman, however, failed again with three misses in four innings. His last matchbal was a seemingly simple shot. ,,I had lost my concentration due to the time frame,'' he said later. ,,I missed because I touched my cueball completely wrong.''
Marco Zanetti decided the match with a miraculous fluke and grabbed victory with all the luck in the world. He missed the shot, but thanks to the kiss, the cueball touched the third ball. ,,I am ashamed that it ends like this'', was his first reaction.
But later he expressed his happiness, first with a smile: ,,That's why someone called me the demolition man.'' And then: ,,I must thank heaven for this victory and now I hope furiously that we get an Agipi final with Frédéric Caudron.''