3-Cushion
TURNHOUT - The match was preceded by a long history: Martin Spoormans played a match against Leon Smolders on Monday night. The two Belgian veterans have a long and distinguished record: together eighty years active as player in the highest league. Martin Spoormans won the 80-year war with an impressive score: 42-9 in 16 innings.
Biljart Express played a draw in the entire match against BC Herentals. Guy of Litsenborg also won his match for Express, Frans van Kuijk and Gerwin Valentine lost to the Germans Martin Horn and Christian Rudolph.
Martin Spoormans is digging in his own archives when he talks about the eighty years: ,,I won a total of 307 matches, Leon won 238. But he won a very important match once, in Spa, because the winner would be a pro in the BWA. Leon was 2-0 ahead, I came back to 2-2, but eventually Leon won 3-2. He has been a pro for only one year and played seven BWA tournaments.''
Martin and 'Smollie', as he is called by his friend, played together in Tienen and later ten years together for TBA Merode center with Rob Vandijck and Ronnie Daniels. Forty years ago they made in Hasselt the promotion together to the honor league.
The mutual battle between the brothers in arms turned out into a bizarre match. Spoormans looked a 6-4 deficit after three innings, but then attacked with one of his famous caprices: he overpowered his opponent, ran out to 26-9 and finished 42-9 in sixteen innings.
The teams from De Goeie Queue and Sint Truiden before the start of their match.
The frontrunners, De Goeie Queue/AEJ and BC Deurne both won with the maximum 8-0 score. Torbjörn Blomdahl and Davy Havere showed a blistering form for BC Deurne: the Swede with a win over Eddy Leppens (50-24 in 20), the former Belgian cup winner against Iwan Stitschinsky 42-16 in twenty innings.
Davy van Havere played an excellent match which he won 42 points in 20 innings.
Jef Philipoom (50-43 in 31 against Barry van Beers) and Jean van Erp (42-20 in 28 vs Roland Uytdewillegen) shared in the success and the team average: 1.858.
De Goeie Queue returned home with an 8-0 victory from the away match in Sint Truiden. Dick Jaspers was the best winner against Thomas Broux (50-19 in 23 innings, 2.272), Frédéric Caudron won in 29, Eddy Merckx in 23 and Jean Paul de Bruijn in 32 innings.
Striking detail: for De Goeie Queue all players made a run over ten: Caudron 14 Merckx 11 Jaspers and De Bruijn 10.
Pierre Soumagne shone for BC Zanzibar. The French player, who showed already his top form in a Grand Prix final against Jérémy Bury on Sunday (which he lost on two caroms), defeated Eddy Willems 42-15 in 19 innings (2.210). Zanzibar won 8-0 vs De Ploeg 1 thanks to Roland Forthomme (29 innings), Dave Christiani (25) and Kenny Miatton (27).
De Ploeg 2 bested Biljartvrienden 6-2: only Raimond Burgman showed himself the strong leader for Biljartvrienden: 50-43 win in 26 innings against Jack Wijnen.
Royal Brugse against De Witte Molen was an exciting match at three tables: Henk Blauwblomme played a draw against Glenn Hoffman, Patrick Vasseur against Ad Broeders and Koen Saver lost on one carom against Ronny Brants. Thanks to Francis Forton, De Witte Molen took a 6-2 overall win.