3-Cushion
SCHILTIGHEIM - The best team in the world, with Frédéric Caudron, Marco Zanetti and Jérémy Bury as top three players, is already for many years the unbeatable star team in the own Agipi arena in the European cup. But in the most beautiful and best tournament in the world, the Agipi Masters, these home players could not win the tournament so far and shine at the highest podium place.
Frédéric Caudron and Marco Zanetti will have a shot at the crown in the final of the Agipi Masters 2013. They are in great form, as they showed in the Lausanne Billard Masters this weekend, where Zanetti won the final against Caudron.
Two-time winner Dick Jaspers is one of the main competitors in a field that also consists of Dani Sánchez, Martin Horn, Tayfun Tasdemir, Lüutfi Cenet and Jae Ho Cho.
Dani Sánchez, like Dick Jaspers triple world champion, was one of the stars in the previous round. And the level in the last sessions was so highly impressive, that world class players as Torbjörn Blomdahl, Kyung-Roul Kim and Filippos Kasidokostas failed to pick up a ticket for the finals.
The podium of the Agipi Masters, in the magnificent arena in Schiltigheim, is ideally suited for new highs in the nascent billiards year. Bert van Manen, the journalist and statistician, reported in the days before tournament on his facebook site a record of matches over three average: 44 total. This year, so far, the number of matches over three is 22, while we are not even three months in 2013.
The Kozoom cameras will be focused to offer their Premium Pass members a program of excellence three cushion in the upcoming days. From Thursday 21 to Sunday 24 in live sessions, at a later stage these matches are broadcasted on Eurosport 2.
The omens predict a spectacle on the highest level: never the overall average in the final group stage was so high as this year. The eight finalists signed up for 2137.
The sixth edition offers the audience seven live broadcasts: the quarterfinals on Thursday and Friday at 18.00 and 21.00, the semifinals on Saturday at 18.00 and 21.00 and the final on Sunday at 21.00.
There are five additional matches scheduled for the ranks: on Friday and Saturday at 15.00 and Sunday at 10.30 and 17.00 will be played for places three until eight.
The quarterfinals in chronological order:
Thursday 18.00: Lütfi Cenet (Turkey) against Jae-Ho Cho (Korea)
Lutfi Cenet has climbed to 14th place in the world. He started for the second time in the Agipi Masters. In the preliminary round Group C, he remained unbeaten with 7 match points, averaging 1.869.
Jae Ho Cho is the 11th player in the ranking. His first appearance, last year, was not a success. This year he finished second in Group B with 6 points (3 wins and 1 loss) and an average of 2.172.
Thursday 21.00: Tayfun Tasdemir (Turkey) against Marco Zanetti (Italy)
Tayfun Tasdemir is the fifteenth in the ranking. He impressed in the previous round, where he remained unbeaten in Group A with 8 match points and 2.326 average.
Marco Zanetti, the current number eight in the world, has completed a magnificent weekend in the Lausanne Masters, which he won with a more than 1.900 average. He was second in Group A of the preliminaries, won by Tasdemir, with six points and 2.124 average.
Friday 18.00: Daniel Sánchez (Spain) against Dick Jaspers (Netherlands)
Dani Sánchez is triple world champion and currently the number five in the world. For the first time in five participations in Agipi Masters the Spaniard showed his real class in the preliminary round. He finished first and remained unbeaten in Group B with 8 points and 2.469 average.
Dick Jaspers is the absolute star of the tournament so far with two victories in 2009 and 2010 and two second places in 2008 and 2011. The triple world champion earned 94.025 euros in his performances, averaging 18,825 per edition. Jaspers finished second in Group D with five match points and 1.970 average.
Friday 21.00: Frédéric Caudron (Belgium) against Martin Horn (Germany)
Frédéric Caudron earned 58.050 euros in five appearances. His best performance were two third places in 2008 and 2009. He remained unbeaten in Group D with 8 match points and 2.500 average, the best result in the qualifying matches. Caudron’s match against Dick Jaspers was historic: the Belgian trailed 44-7, but still managed to win the match.
Martin Horn played five times in Agipi and earned 28.750 euros, the same as Merckx, Bury, Zanetti and Kasidokostas. Horn finished second in Group C with 1.865 average. He recorded the best overall average in last year’s edition, when Blomdahl and Horn was the third in the ranks: 2,157.
For more information please visit the website of Agipi Billiard Masters.