3-Cushion
GANDIÁ - He came to Gandía as the number 61 on the ranking, started against Pepe Martín and finished on Sunday against Sergio Jiménez in the final. Adrián Legazpi prevailed from start to finish with eight matches and eight victories, some of which were high-level matches. For the second time, Adrián Legazpi was named winner of the Spanish Open, after being the 2012 winner at the Ateneo Mercantil in Valencia.
Legazpi had three of the five best averages in the preliminaries, and beat five Spanish top guns in a row in the final stage: Gómez Bravo, Iván Mayor, Ricardo García, Carlos Crespo and Sergio Jiménez.
The final in Gandía featured two of Spain's best players. Although both have been on the podium many times before, only Adrián Legazpi indeed managed to win a national tournament. Sergio Jimenez, on the other hand, has to keep on looking for that big win that he deserves with his talent and career. This Sunday, he took his eighth silver medal in the same number of finals at open and individual Spanish championships.
The match in this final had only one way. Adrian dominated from the start and went to the break 20-2 in eight innings. Sergio's response brought him to 28-18, that was the closest he came to Legazpi. The Madrid native finished with 4, 3 and 3 (40-25 in 26).
Carlos Crespo and Raúl Cuenca won the bronze medals. The player from the Palma billiards club, Crespo, beat Salvador Verdú, then Rubén Legazpi in 18 innings and finally the Andalusian Francisco Rodríguez before losing to the champion. Sueca's player Cuenca returned to the podium after winning the silver medal on the same stage two seasons ago.
The quarter-finalists were Ricardo García, protagonist of the best match and run of the championship (40 in 12, 3,333 and run 13) against José Luis Pascual; Francisco J. Rodríguez Dominguez, the Andalusian who eliminated Antonio Montes, among others.
The final ranking and averages:
1 Adrián Legazpi, 1,422
2 Sergio Jiménez 1,445
3 Raúl Cuenca 1,256
3 Carlos Crespo 1,212
5 Alfonso Legazpi 1,287
6 Ricardo García 1,388
7 Jordi Garriga 1,177
8 Fcancisco Rodríguez 0,974