The eight final players, the schedule and the rankings

11/18/2017

Published by frits bakker

Jérémy Bury, one of the final players with the best match: 40 in 12 innings

LAUSANNE - The main question before the start at the Lausanne Billard Masters was: who of the nine world ranked players will not survive the pre-rounds. Only eight tickets were available for the quarterfinals tonight, starting at 7.00 PM. The only one who went down was the Korean Dong-Koong Kang, not good enough and eliminated in his group by Caudron and Zanetti. The quarter-finalists are Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Jae-Ho Cho, Jérémy Bury, Dick Jaspers, Dani Sánchez, Marco Zanetti and Nikos Polychronopoulos.

Frédéric Caudron was the only player to remain unbeaten with six match points, the other final players finished with four match points and were classified on average..

The matches in the first round with direct elimination are:
19.00:
Caudron-Polychronopoulos
Sánchez-Cho
21.15:
Jaspers-Blomdahl
Zanetti-Bury

Three of those eight finalists have already won before in Lausanne: Zanetti even twice, furthermore Jaspers and Sánchez. Two matches topped the preliminaries: the match of Jérémy Bury and Jae-Ho Cho in 12 innings (3.333 average). The Korean set his attack to victory with a run of sixteen against Blomdahl. Bury, who started his mission with a loss, continued in the second round with a win over Dani Sánchez in 12 innings. In the later sessions, there was a high-level match between Torbjörn Blomdahl and Dick Jaspers, decisive for the group win. The Swede had a strong finish with eight in the final part.

The organizer, Diane Wild, concluded after the qualifictions: ,,I am very happy, because the venue was full on the opening day and the ambiance very good. There was big suspens in the matches. I think this formula with quarter finals is very good for the spectators.''

The overview of the preliminaries:

Group A:

The most attractive match of this preround came to the name of Jérémy Bury, who recorded a run of 10 against Dani Sánchez and overtook his opponent in ten already in 12 innings: 40-27, averages 3.333 and 2.250. Nikos Polychronopoulos had already advanced with two victories after the second round, against Bury 40-31 in 27/26 and against Michel Boulaz 40-22 in 32.

And while Frenchman Bury took his third match to reach the quarterfinals (40-13 in 24/23), Sánchez still had to win his match against Polychrounopouls. The Spaniard did what he had to do with a comfortable score: 40-27 in 22/21 innings. Three players therefore finished with four match points, Jérémy Bury was the best on average.

The final score in Group A:
1 Jérémy Bury 4-1.790-11
2 Dani Sánchez 4-1.725-10
3 Nikos Polychronopoulos 4-1.337-7
4 Michel Boulaz 0-0.626-5.

Group B:

Torbjörn Blomdahl lifted his average over 2.000 in the last round and earned an extra bonus. In his last match, the Swede defeated Dick Jaspers in a high-level-match: 40-36 in 17. Blomdahl finished with a final run of 8 at 36-32. As a result he became group winner with 2.106 on average followed by Jae-Ho Cho and Dick Jaspers.

The best match was from the Korean, who left Blomdahl behind 40-19 in an ultra-short fight over 12 innings. The tension for the group win was still there, as Jaspers won in the second round against Cho 40-37 in 27. Then, the best final shot came from Blomdahl, who ran into a run of 11 by Jaspers (23-16) and after 25-24 in the 12th, started his sprint to the finish. The highest run (also in the entire preliminaries) was for Cho with 16.

The final score in Group B:
1 Torbjörn Blomdahl 4-2.106-9
2 Jae-Ho Cho 4-1.887-16
3 Dick Jaspers 4-1.784-11
4 Fernando Couto 0-0.590-4.

Group C:

Six days after Frédéric Caudron and Marco Zanetti faced each other in the semi-finals at the World championships in Bolivia, they met again. The game today was only important for the group win, as both players had already qualified for the final round. The match at the other table, between Kang and Ma, was only for statistics.

Caudron was just outside the top five on average before the match, but the winner of Zanetti-Caudron would finish on top with six match points. The Belgian has a nice start (14-9 in 3), Zanetti was back in the race at the break and even led 24-18 in 12. Caudron, in the winning mood, then took the initiative in the last part and won smoothly 40-32 in 24 innings.

The final score in Group C:
1 Frédéric Caudron 6-1.643-8
2 Marco Zanetti 4-1.317-8
3 Dong-Koong Kang 4-1.397-8
4 Duy Tien Ma 0-0.827-5.