3-Cushion
WONJU - The Spaniard Dani Sánchez and Korean Sung-won Choi are the winners of the first Five&Six event in Korea. The two ex-world champions won the Scotch Double tournament in the final against Dick Jaspers and Jung-Han Heo 2-1. The two finalists remained quite balanced in the final fight: Sánchez/Choi won the first set of ten minutes with 18-12 in 9, Jaspers and Heo grabbed the second set with 19-11 in 8, the decisive third set went to Sánchez and Choi 11-7 in 3 innings.
The Scotch Double, with pairs matched by draw, was a fast tournament with a 15 seconds shot clock. It was an attractive warm-up for the main tournament, which starts on Monday and in which the 32 players play a marathon of games for a final top prize of 77,000 euros for the winners. Tomorrow, Sunday, fifteen players play a second run-up tournament in Scotch Double, in which the 15 players are paired with a sponsor.
The two groups were won in the first Scotch Double by Torbjörn Blomdahl and Chang-hoon Seo in Group A and Murat Naci Coklu and Myeong-jong Cha in Group B. Both pairs finished the groups with 18 match points, Coklu and Cha with 1,611 on average, Blomdahl and Seo with 1,512.
Dani Sánchez and Sung-won Choi, the numbers two in Group A with 15 match points, already made the best impression with 1,708 on average. Nikos Polychronopoulos/Bong-ju Hwang and Dion Nelin/Jun-tae Kim finished third and fourth and qualified for the Play-offs. Very surprising was the elimination of Eddy Merckx and Quyet Chien Tran, the best starters in the field, who were knocked down by Blomdahl and Seo (23-8 in 10) with two losses in the last rounds and in the last game by Polychronopoulos and Hwang et 13-11 in 12.
Murat Naci Coklu and Myeong-jong Cha prevailed in Group B with 18 points, ahead of Tayfun Tasdemir/Nguyen Quoc Nguyen with 15, Wan-young Choi/Ja-in Kang with 10, as well as Dick Jaspers/Jung-Han Heo with 10 match points. Coklu and Cha won their last match against Choi/Kang 17-15 in 7, but were already out of reach for the top spot. Jaspers and Heo just grabbed the fourth position by a victory over Semih Sayginer and Choong-bok Lee with 18-17 in 8.
Roland Forthomme and HaengJik Kim missed the qualification by finishing 1 point behind Jaspers/Heo. Sayginer/Lee won only two games out of seven, the same as Therese Klompenhouwer with Ji-eun Han, who also finished with six match points.
In the play-offs to best of three, Dani Sánchez and Sung-won Choi first beat Torbjörn Blomdahl and Chang-hoon Seo (17-17 in 8, 21-9 in 10, 13-2 in 5), average for Sánchez/Choi 2.217. Sánchez and Choi then also won against Nelin/Kim 2-1 after 17-20 in 8, 20-11 in 10, 5-4 in 8. Dick Jaspers/Jung-Han Heo beat Tayfun Tasdemir/Nguyen Quoc Nguyen 2-0 (15-13 in 10, 16-14 in 10) on their way to the final and were also 2-0 too strong for Coklu/Cha in a fascinating battle (18-16 in 6, 18-17 in 6).
The rankings in the first shuffle:
Group A:
1 Blomdahl/Seo 6-0-1-18-1,512-6
2 Sánchez/Choi 5-0-2-15-1.708-10
3 Polychronopoulos/Hwang 5-0-2-15-1.454-9
4 Nelin/Kim 3-1-3-10-1,309-11
5 Merckx/Tran 3-0-4-9-1,418-9
6 Sidhom/Kim 2-2-3-8-1,109-7
7 Ahn/Montes 2-1-4-8-1.291-7
8 Degener/Kim 0-0-7-0.752-5
Group B:
1 Coklu/Cha 6-0-1-18-1.611-9
2 Tasdemir/Nguyen 5-0-2-15-1.555-8
3 Choi/Kang 3-1-3-10-1,400-7
4 Jaspers/Heo 3-1-3-10-1,400-7
5 Forthomme/Kim 3-0-4-9-1.059-4
6 Cho/Cenet 3-0-4-9-1,113-7
7 Sayginer/Lee 2-0-5-6-1.351-6
8 Klompenhouwer/Han 2-0-5-6-0.965-7
T
Jung-Han Heo and Dick Jaspers, the losing finalists