3-Cushion
SEOUL - The optimists by nature among the audience and the players still believed in a little miracle, but the scoreboard in the Continental Cup was relentless after two days. The Asian team lead over Europe after 16 of 24 matches shows a comfortable 400-292. The 108 points margin puts the red Asia team in a spacious position for the final match day. The final day, Sunday, looks like just a formality. The blue European train, last year's winner in the first edition, 600-483 (117 points difference) went in the pursuit on the second day, but it was in vain. They bowed their heads despondently at the end of the day. 'The Reds' in the box of the winners face a relaxed night, the European team closed the day with a warm applause for the strong rivals. The winning stronghold last year has already been killed.
Young guy Myung-Woo Cho was the star player on the second day with 25 in 4 innings against Semih Sayginer (25-4). Together with Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, he is the best of sixteen players with four match points and the best average after two days: 2,777. Dick Jaspers is the best European on average: 2,375, but no player in the blue team is undefeated. Five Asian players have the maximum 4 match points, four Europeans still are on 0 match points. The average speaks for itself: Asia played 1,941 over 16 games, Europe 1,417.
The catch-up race after the first day was started by the Turks Tayfun Tasdemir and Murat Naci Coklu, who cleared 24 caroms from the backlog. The punitive expedition that followed, gave the Europeans another slam blow. Myung-Woo Cho (22 and junior world champion) was relentless for the magician Sayginer in the fifth match of the day with a demonstration of his high qualities: 5, 3, 7 and 10 for the win and a 25-4 score. That again increased the lead to 81 caroms. The score before the last match (Zanetti-Kim) was 375-279, 96 points ahead for Asia. HaengJik Kim beat Zanetti 25-13 in 12 and only made it worse.
Murat Naci Coklu was the best winner for the blue team. The Turk, one of three Turks in the team and the only one born in the European part of Istanbul (thanks Torbjörn for the information), defeated Jung-Han Heo 45-25 in 33 innings after a decisive attack with 3 , 3, 4 and 7 in the crucial part. Tayfun Tasdemir caught up with four points against Jae-Ho Cho (29-25 in 23).
'The shot of the tournament' by Eddy Merckx, as commentator Blomdahl already called it, could not bring the spirit back into the European eight. Merckx lost to Dinh Nai Ngo (25-21 in 14) with only two matches left for the second day. It already looked like a mission impossible for Dick Jaspers and Marco Zanetti to give the score a milder look. Jaspers was beaten in the second last game by Nguyen Quoc Nguyen with a striking uppercut: 25-14 in 10. Zanetti lost the last to Kim.
The scores of both teams after two days:
Asia-Europe after 16 mathes: 400-192 (difference 108 points)
Average:
Asia 1,941
Europe 1,417.
Team Asia:
1 Nguyen Quoc Nguyen 4-2,777-15
2 Myung-Woo Cho 4-2,777-10
3 Dinh Nai Ngo 4-2,173-11
4 Quyet Chien Tran 4-1,851-13
5 Sung-Won Choi 4-1,785-11
6 HaengJik Kim 2-1,785-8
7 Jae-Ho Cho 2-1,317-7
8 Jung-Han Heo 2-1,219-8
Team Europe:
1 Dick Jaspers 2-2,375-13
2 Marco Zanetti 2-1,807-7
3 Murat Naci Coklu 2-1,333-10
4 Tayfun Tasdemir 2-1,137-5
5 Semih Sayginer 0-1,500-4
6 Eddy Merckx 0-1,333-6
7 Dani Sánchez 0-1,200-5
8 Jérémy Bury 0-0,812-4.Het
Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, one of the killers in the Asian team
Myung-Woo Cho, the best winner, high fives with his teammates
Murat Naci Coklu, the best winner on the Europe team
Marco Zanetti closed the day with a loss to HaengJik Kim.