3-Cushion
PORTO - The Portuguese three cushion title is back in the hands of Rui Manuel Costa, the most successful player in his country. The 59-year-old FC Porto player was crowned the winner after a marathon of preliminary rounds and a final with eight players, in which he finished ahead of Paulo Andrade. "I am so happy that I'm the number one again in my country", was his first comment. Two years ago was his last title, in total Rui Costa was eight times champion of his country.
The championship was played in two phases: first the preliminaries in four groups of eight players, that had to lead to a final group with eight players. "It was a fantastic marathon," said champion Rui Costa, who played 21 games and made a total of 902 points. The 25-year-old Joao Fereira, who won the European Cup for teams with FC Porto, was not among the participants. He moved to Madrid and only plays for the team of Ateneo de Valencia. José Miguel Soares was one of the youngsters in the field of participants who played around 1,000 in the final group. He defeated Paulo Andrade, that made Rui Costa the champion before the final match.
Rui Costa: ''It was a hard fight to take the title, because my opponents are not as weak as many people think. They are great fighters, who play a lot of strategic and defensive games."
Rui Costa played a match in the quarterfinals with 1.497 average and made 40 points in 11 innings in the semi-final.
The final ranking:
1 Rui Manuel Costa 12-1.204
2 Paul Andrade 12-1.052
3 José Escudeiro 8-0.920
4 Vasco Gomes 6-1.031
5 Anibal Silva 6-0.984
6 José Miguel Soares 6-0.973
7 Fernando Monteiro 4-0.829
8 José Correia 2-0.881.
The eight final players at the Portuguese championship