Forthomme the better of Merckx in France

SAINT QUENTIN/COURBEVOIE - The Morangis team is the unbeaten leader after two days of play in the French team competition for Group B with 4 match points. The leader took its match 6-2 in Saint Quentin. Kozoom and Courbevoie shared the win in this group: 4-4. The most striking matches: Roland Forthomme defeated Eddy Merckx 40-34 in 22, Robinson Morales won the match against Johan Loncelle 40-25 in 21. Two old fighters met each other: Richard Bitalis was by far the best man against Francis Connesson 40-20 in 24 innings.

Kozoom was trailing 4-0 at the break in the away game against Courbevoie with wins from Richard Bitalis against Francis Connesson and Vahit Kunt against Marc Boignères. But after the break, Roland Forthomme shone against Eddy Merckx with a thunderous start: 15-1 in 2 innings. And after a second 9 for Forthomme, the score was 27-10 at the break. Eddy Merckx came back to 28-34 and then 33-37, but Forthomme remained in control of the match and won 40-34.

Nikos Polychronopoulos and Steven van Acker went to a close finish at 33-30, after which Poly finished with 6: 40-34 in 28.

Kozoom picked up one point in the trip to Courbevoie thanks to the two foreign leaders. Kozoom averaged 1,233, Courbevoie 1,437.

In Saint-Quentin, playing against Morangis, Jean Reverchon was not in the mood to play after losing his father Pierre one week before. He lost to the French junior champion Nathan Duriez: 40-31 in 44. It turned out to be the only victory for Saint-Quentin.

Before the break, Jean Christoph Roux first beat Kévin Perrotin 40-23 in 28 and in the two top games, victory also went to the Morangis players. Robinson Morales was the strongest against Johan Loncelle and Ruben Legazpi won against Peter Ceulemans 40-35 in 25 innings.

Morangis wins the match 6-2 with a 1,280 average against 1,042 for Saint Quentin.