Carom
BLANKENBERGE - The palmares of his younger years is still a wonderful memory for Steven van Acker. He was second in 2003 at the Junior World championships in his hometown Eeklo behind Filippos Kasidokostas, there was another third place at Junior Worlds and he took silver and bronze at the Junior European championships.
With all that talent, he then went off in another direction . ,,I met a girl, we're married, I had my job and we got two kids. I was sure that it was more important than playing billiards and I've absolutely never regretted it.''
The 29 year old man from Eeklo is now playing for fun, but still on a more than reasonable level. Tonight, on the final day of the preliminaries in the Belgian championship, he shared himself to the sixteenth best finalists by defeating Ivan Stitschinsky 40-9 in 21/1.905 average.
Peter De Backer heads the list after the preliminaries ahead of Eddy Leppens, Roland Forthomme, Eddy Merckx and Frédéric Caudron.
Steven Van Acker will meet former world champion Jef Philipoom in the first round. He concluded, looking back at his start as a three cushion player: ,,Actually I've never had the illusion to reach the top and could match with the greatest talents, however I played current star players at the Worlds as Filippos Kasidokostas, Alexander Salazar and Merlin Romero.''
The most beautiful memory is the World championship for his home crowd in Eeklo, with the final against Kasidokostas. ,,I lost 2-1 in sets, but he was much better than I with an average of 1.400 to 0.800.''
The qualification for the final round Van Acker took in the match in which he was never threatened by Ivan Stitschinsky and made the gap with a ten run.
Roland Forthomme did what he had hoped on beforehand. He finished in 20 innings against Luc Salvo, making him the third on the ranking of winners.
That final ranking is:
1 Peter De Backer, 6 points 2.000, 11
2 Eddy Leppens, 6-1.818-16
3 Roland Forthomme 6-1.690-9
4 Eddy Merckx 6-1.643-11
5 Frédéric Caudron 6-1.481-8
6 Peter Ceulemans 4-1.443-7
7 Jef Philipoom 4-1.252-11
8 Davy van Havere 4-1.122-6
9 Michel van Camp 4-1.285-8
10 Steven van Acker 4-1.162-10
11 Francis Forton 4-1.155-9
12 Martin Spoormans 4-1.071-8
13 Martin Ravestyn 4-0.954-8
14 Marco Janssen 3-1.137-8
15 Kenny Miatton 3-0.942-9
16 Rudy de Laet 3-0.796-6 .
The quarter final matches tomorrow, Friday:
11.00:
Caudron - Forton
Leppens - De Laet
13.00:
Van Havere - Van Camp
Spoormans - Ceulemans
15.00:
Forthomme - Janssen
18.00:
Merckx - Ravestyn
20.30:
De Backer - Miatton
Van Acker - Philipoom.