3-Cushion
PORTO - Was it the Belgian football team at the World championships who inspired Peter Ceulemans to a quick and great match this Monday evening? The undisputed star player on the opening day at the World Cup in Porto was right in time to see the Red Devils escape in the dying minutes against Japan with a 3-2 victory. Ceulemans himself imposed much more in a brilliant performance and a 30 points win in 8 innings. The poor Portuguese Santos Oliveira was lucky to score one more time in the equalizer at 30-1 (!). ,,Ha, ha, that was not so bad'', Ceulemans summarized his first two matches: four match points, 2.857 average and a 13-run in his last match. That brought the long Belgian comfortable on top of the ranking after the first day with Jef Philipoom (4 match points, 1.621) as an excellent second and Jean Reverchon with 4 points and 1.395 in the top three.
The reaction to his matches by Peter Ceulemans: ,,I knew the form was there: I won against Caudron and played a draw against Leppens last week. But it's nice, of course, such a start, even though it's a new start tomorrow with better players in the tournament.'' The reaction to the match of the Red Devils at the World championship in Russia: ,,We have to play much better in our defence against Brazil, because this looked very poor. Anyway, the final sprint was amazing, from 2-0 behind to a 3-2 win. And what a substitutes from our coach.''
The Portuguese were with six in the best sixteen of whom Jose Miguel Soares was the best with 4 points and 1.224. Henk Blauwblomme was the third Belgian behind Ceulemans and Philipoom in the best sixteen. Peter Ceulemans was one point from the finish in his match against Santos Oliveira with a run of thirteen in the seventh inning. ,,I missed on a tough shot, but in the next inning I made my last which was just as difficult.'' The five Dutch players in the field were all second in the group and were outplayed. Raymon Groot was the most close. The best of the Orange quintet was beaten on one point in the deciding match against Juan Bouterin Bote (30-29), due to a 10-run of the Spaniard.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, the most interesting groups are:
Filippos Kasidokostas with Barry van Beers
Dion Nelin with Antonio Montes
Jef Philipoom with Savas Bulut
Peter Ceulemans with Jose Maria Mas
Carlos Crespo with Gwendal Maréchal
Jacob Sörensen with Ahmet Alp.
Furthermore, there is the entrance of David Zapata, the revelation of the Blankenberge World Cup.
Monday's day ranking:
1 Peter Ceulemans 4-2.857-13
2 Jef Philipoom 4-1.621-8
3 Jean Reverchon 4-1.395-10
4 Jose Miguel Soares 4-1.224-7
5 Muhammed Cavusoglu 4-1.111-5
6 Juan Bouterin Bote 4-1.034-10
7 Henk Blauwblomme 4-0.967-6
8 Vasco Gomes 4-0.857-5
9 José Escudeiro 4-0.857-9
10 Norbert Roestel 4-0.833-6
11 Miguel Casademunt 4-0.833-4
12 José Cardoso 4-0.789-7
13 Manuel Sousa 4-0.789-5
14 Karsten Witte 4-0.638-4
15 Luis Santos 3-0.923-6
16 Felix Castellano 2-0.828-6.
Jef Philipoom finished second with two wins and 1.621
French player Jean Reverchon in the top three