BRANDENBURG - Marco Zanetti finished the European championship three cushion in Brandenburg two weeks ago with a fabulous record average. The Italian, in the very best season of his career, grabbed the gold medal in the final against Christian Rudolph and scored 2.500 overall average.
That is an European record tournament average.
The European championships three cushion have been played seventy times in total. The Swede Fred Aeberhard won the first championship in Amsterdam in 1932 (0.659 average), followed three times in a row by the Frenchman Alfred Lagache.
Raymond Ceulemans is the absolute record holder with 23 titles between 1962 (Kaatsheuvel) and 1992 (Cairo). Rene Vingerhoedt and Torbjörn Blomdahl were both nine times European champion.
Marco Zanetti, who last week opened a stylish new facebook site, took in Brandenburg his first title and showed his amazing form with the best average ever played.
The top ten best averages:
1 Marco Zanetti (Italy), 2013, Brandenburg, 2.500
2 Torbjörn Blomdahl (Sweden), 2001, Odense, 2.235
3 Dick Jaspers (Netherlands), 2008, Florange, 2.169
4 Dick Jaspers, 2010, Sankt Wendel, 2.168
5 Frédéric Caudron (Belgium), 2006, Antalya, 1.937
6 Dani Sánchez (Spain), 2009, Odense, 1.864
7 Dick Jaspers, 2003, Goynuk, 1.834
8 Filippos Kasidokostas (Greece), 2012, Istanbul, 1.798
9 Torbjörn Blomdahl, 1991, Dordrecht, 1.772
10 Frédéric Caudron, 2002, Izmir, 1.731.