3-Cushion
ANTWERP - The World championship three cushion in Antwerp experienced its first sensation on the second day of the tournament. Torbjörn Blomdahl, the world’s number one, lost his first group match against Javier Teran from Ecuador 40-27 in 28 innings.
The Swede could not really find an excuse for the missed start: ,,I played an unlucky match, with a lot of bad positions. That made it almost impossible to score. I just missed a couple of good balls, but my feeling says, I missed more of those positions when I played my world record three weeks in the Greece World Cup.''
Torbjörn, who lost three times against Teran in his career so far, gets a second chance tomorrow. Then he faces Riad Nady from Egypt, who beat Teran in his first group match 40-32 in 38. ,,I realize that I have to win with a big margin to advance to next round.’’
Torbjörn Blomdahl is not unbeatable in this shiny stage of his career, despite of his famous world record. Javier Teran, who failed on the opening day, now took a bloody revenge.
On one of the other tables, Jérémy Bury was in big troubles as well in his first appearance. The very likeable Dane Michael Lohse, who lost on the first day vs Jung Han Heo (40-31 in 27), had a strong start, put the Frenchman on a big backlog and finished first: 40-35 in 27.
For a draw, Bury needed five points in the equalizer. He made a gorgeous point for his third, a banana shot, and then scored his last two points for 40-40.
,,The point was almost impossible, but it was my only chance to play it like that’’, Bury said later. And with a smile: ,,Maybe we have to conclude on Sunday, that it was the most important point of the weekend.’’
Frédéric Caudron won his match facing the Italian Andrea Bitetti and beat him with ease (40-13 in 26), the Vietnamese Ngo Dinh Nai send Peter Ceulemans home with his second loss in Antwerp: 40-32 in 39.