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Dutch team a brutal killer for Koreans

15/03/2014

Publicado por frits bakker

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© © Harry van Nijlen/Kozoom
Martin Horn (left) before the home clash with Torsten Frings

VIERSEN - The world of three cushion turned upside down at the World championships for national teams in Viersen on the eve of destructions. The Dutch team, with Dick Jaspers and Barry van Beers, which was one of the outsiders in the title fight, defeated in the late Saturday night the most famous country in the world, Korea, on both tables: 2-0.

The showdown was doubly hard for the Koreans, as the Orange team also outplayed the Korea B team in the preliminaries. The Netherlands will meet tomorrow Germany A in the semi-finals, Turkey, which also snatched victory in a thriller with penalties against Denmark, meets the reigning champion, Belgium B, after having beat the A-team with a clear score.

On the eve before the final rounds, the Festhalle in Viersen was shaking, not only because of the big bump between the two German teams, accompanied by lots of bells and whistles, also by the Turkish victory in a sensational final part against Denmark.

But at the end, the elimination of the Koreans was the huge surprise of the evening. The country with its countless number of top players, of whom three showed up in the semi-finals of the last World Cup in Istanbul, was trumped by a country in which Dick Jaspers is the only world class player and the sub top is not able to penetrate the top 20 for years.

And not only Dick Jaspers is shining at this World championship in Viersen, even the very modest and likeable Barry van Beers is performing on top level, as if he feels like a fish in water. The second man in the Dutch team already had an excellent start against the Vietnamese Anh Vu Duong and now defeated the Korean coming man Jae Ho Cho in the quarters.

That all happened in a breathtaking atmosphere, where the Dutch were leading the whole session, but the tide could turn every moment. At the end, Jaspers finished his match as first against Jung Han Heo, who was two points down after the equalizer (40-38 in 20).

Barry van Beers took a 35-28 gap against Jae Ho Cho, but allowed his opponent to come closer in the final phase, when he eventually showed his nerves of steel: 40-39 in 33 innings.

Even more enervating and compelling was in the other quarterfinal match between Turkey and Denmark. The Danes, of whom Tonni Carlsen was the great luminary so far, battled a big fight with Tayfun Tasdemir and Tolgahan Kiraz.

Tasdemir was the first winner in the session, but saw Tonni Carlsen score the two points he needed in the equalizer to 40-40 in 34. Tolgahan Kiraz could finish it off for his country, scored the 40 in 40 innings, but in the sensational end, Michael Lohse scored six caroms for the draw.

The two players had to decide from the penalty spots which country would move up to the semifinals. Kiraz took the start with 5, Lohse walked to the table for an immensely difficult task: he missed from the spots.

The Belgian clash in the first round turned out into a fairly easy victory for the world champions Frédéric Caudron and Eddy Merckx. Caudron was particularly strong against Eddy Leppens, his teammate in the Netherlands and Belgium, whom he left in a first attack far behind (24-13) and then killed him at 40-20 in 17 innings.

Eddy Merckx and Roland Forthomme were pretty long in balance, but shortly before Caudron decided his match on the other table, Merckx sprang to live with a run of eleven and took a comfortable lead: 34-23 in 19.

Martin Horn was the team's best man in the German bump after two skinny matches in the preliminaries. Torsten Frings, strong in the first few days, couldn't impress the champ, who finished at 40-16 in 24.

Ronny Lindemann could maintain the tension for some time in his match against Steffan Galla with scores of 23-9 and 28-13, but in the phase in which Horn finished it off for his team, the Rocket's 35-20 was not enough for a stunt.

The semi-finals, tomorrow, Sunday, at 11.00:

Belgium B - Turkey
Netherlands - Germany A.

 

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