Carom
CARTAGENA - Sixteen teams, divided into four groups of four, are playing for a place in the finals of the 27th Spanish championship for teams this weekend. They not only battle for the Spanish title, moreover, the first two teams qualify for the preliminary rounds of the European Cup.
Two teams from each group will advance to the next qualifying round with eight teams. The final round is from 14 to 17 June.
Favorites for the Spanish title are the teams of Gandia, which probably will play with Frédéric Caudron and Eddy Leppens, Coral Colón, Paporta and Casino Cartagena.
The team of Caseta Nova, which has stopped sponsorship after last year's finals in the European Cup, won the title with Dani Sánchez, Tayfun Tasdemir, Ruben Legazpi and Javier Palazón last year.
Coral Colón now is one of the big favorites with Dani Sánchez, Carlos Crespo, Jose Maria Mas and Ricardo Garcia. Paporta is a very strong team with Javier Palazón, Ruben Legazpi and the Spanish champion Antonio Ortiz.
Casino Cartagena's performs with Jose Antonio Carrasco, David Zapata (the European junior champion), David Martinez and Alberto Sintas, the team that played in the preliminaries of the Euoprean cup a few weeks ago.
The qualifying rounds yielded the following ranking list:
1 Coral Colón, 12 points, team average 1.328, 2 Casino Cartagena, 1.103, 3 Paporta 1.083, 4 Gandia Cafemax 1.033, 5 Murcia 0.992, 6 Barcelona 0.947, 7 Alicante 0.936, 8 Antequera 0.843, 9 Montmelo 0.961, 10 Mataró 0.914, 11 Colgadas Casas, 12 Valencia, 13 Casino Alcantarilla, 14 Gran Match, 15 Getafe, 16 Magerit.
The group format:
Group A: Coral Colon Antequera, and Montmeló Magerit.
Group B: Casino de Cartagena, Alicante, Mataro and Getafe.
Group C: Paiporta, Barcelona, Casas Gran Colgadas and Match.
Group D: Gandía, Murcia, Valencia and Casino Alcantarilla.