Nikos to the finals, Dani out for knock-outs

SEOUL - In his best year ever, Dani Sánchez surely knows that all that glitters is not gold. After an amazing series of victories, the Spanish world champion was good in New York, but he just missed the final. In the Korean LG U + tournament, with its huge prize money, Nikos Polychronopoulos reached the finals as the first player of sixteen. Dani Sánchez is eliminated after two losses.

The first performance of the number one in the world was not really good enough. In his second match, Sánchez was chasing the Korean Dong-Koong Kang from the start, he was down at 13-7, 23-13 and 32-28 and finally lost 40-36. Kang finished with 8, for Sánchez, the 8 from the break was not enough.

That means the elimination for the world champion, because Nikos Polychronopoulos, his last opponent tomorrow, is certain to advance with four match points. The two Koreans in the group, Kang and Jae-Ho Cho, both gathered two match points, so the winner of their match show up in the quarterfinals with Polychronopoulos.

Nikos launched his attack in the match against Cho after 23-22 at the break. The Greek first ran out to 36-31 and closed at 40-32. Jae-Ho Cho ran from the spots to 40-36 in 24.

The ranking after two laps in Group C:
1 Nikos Polychronopoulos 4-1.635-10
2 Jae-Ho Cho 2-1.520-8
3 Dong-Koong Kang 2-1.520-9
4 Dani Sánchez 0-1.467-8.

The matches for Wednesday (7.00 in West European time):
Polychronopoulos-Sánchez
Cho-Kang.

Dani Sánchez, the world's number one, is out after two losses