3-Cushion
ANTALYA – Will we have a final between Eddy Merckx and Dick Jaspers, or will Torbjörn Blomdahl and Jérémy Bury be able to rain on their parade? The ouverture to the final day showed the Belgian World champion and his Dutch predecessor are truly on top of their game.
Not that there are any guarantees: with players of this caliber, everything can change in a single match.
Still, afer the quarterfinals (Jaspers beats Yüksel 40-20, Merckx beats Bulut 40-23, Bury beats Palazón 40-32 and Blomdahl edges Kim 40-34) the averages are nothing short of amazing.
As a comparison: Frédéric Caudron set a new world record for World Cup tournament average last year in Vienna: 2.420 over five matches. Dick Jaspers and Eddy Merckx are on schedule to improve on that.
Jaspers is on 2.608 after three matches, Merckx is on 2.500, also after three. Jaspers won his matches in 14, 19 amd 13 innings, Merckx in 23, 7 and 18. You could say that the Dutchman is the more steady one, and the Belgian owes it mostly to that one olympic performance.
Dutchman Bert van Manen, journalist and keeper of billiard stats, remarked this afternoon that only one player was ever better in a match to 40 points. Frédéric Caudron has finished 40 in 6, twice.
Torbjörn Blomdahl started his Antalya campaign off well with a match in 12 innings, but he needed 28 and 30 innings in the following rounds. Jérémy Bury used 19, 15 and 23 innings for his three matches.
Jaspers and Merckx have so far devoured their opponents and left them far behind: Jaspers only had 62 caroms against (18, 24 and 20), Merckx even less: 51 (16, 12 and 23). Blomdahl and Bury had to work harder for their wins: the Swede had 81 points against in three matches, the Frenchman 88.
What does that mean for tomorrow’s semifinals, (Sunday 10.00 AM) when Merckx meets Blomdahl and Jaspers meets Bury?
Nothing at all, other than the fact that Merckx and Jaspers have put themselves in the role of favorite by playing so well, and that their opponents are now the outsiders.
Today’s quarterfinals in short:
Jaspers made the difference against Yüksel in the seventh inning, when he ran a 10 to lead 24-7. He was on cruise-control from there, to win it 40-20 (high runs: 10/8).
Merckx was leading 20-9 in 10 innings against Bulut, who pegged back to 31-20, but could not close the gap with the Belgian: 40-23 (high runs: 8/5).
Bury only gathered steam after ten innings against Palazón, to lead 27-18 after 13 and 34-21 after 20 innings. The Spaniard, victorious over Sánchez earlier today, threw the towel rather quickly: 40-32 (high runs: 7/7).
Blomdahl and Kim were neck and neck at 15-14, 22-19 and 36-34. The Swede than found an opening to win it: 40-34 (high runs: 5/4).
The semifinals:
Sunday 10.00 uur: Jaspers-Bury and Merckx-Blomdahl.