3-Cushion
SEOUL - The numbers one and two in the world ranking three cushion for ladies have showed a brilliant promotion for women's billiards in Seoul. Therese Klompenhouwer, the world champion, and Sruong Pheavy, the number two in the world, played a rarely seen match against each other in the arena of the MBC television channel. Therese won the match to three won sets of 7 caroms 3-1, the averages were extremely high: 2,667 for the Dutch player, 1,750 for the Asian player. It was the last match in the Grand Prix with five ladies, in which Therese Klompenhouwer remained unbeaten and Sruong Pheavy only lost the mutual match.
The two best players in the ranking meet up in a final game against each other over best of seven sets, tomorrow, Sunday. That match will take place at 6 p.m. Korean time, 10.00 Western European time. The main prize is 3,500 euros.
Therese Klompenhouwer performed in the clash with Sruong Pheavy at the best level ever shown by two players in women's three cushion. In the first set, the Dutch won 7-6 in 3 innings, the second set went to the Cambodian 7-3 in 2/1 innings. Therese then went out from the break in the third set, when Pheavy got no inning (7-0). In the fourth, the score was 7-1 in 4 innings.
The world champion emphasized before the tournament that matches to sets of 7 points are nearly unpredictable. Therese proved that in this historic match, in which the two players fought each other at high level and only used a few innings in all sets. Therese made 24 caroms in 9 innings, her opponent 14 in 8 innings.
''This is certainly a world record match averages in this format'' said Klompenhouwer, who surely played a personal record match average. ''I remember a few matches to 25 in 10 innings and once 30 in 12 innings.'' Therese finished unbeaten in the Round Robin with 1,414 on average, ahead of Pheavy with 9 points and 1,149. The remarkable last in the ranking was Jieun Han, the winner of the New York Open two years ago with victories over Therese Klompenhouwer and Orie Hida. Han finished without match points and an average of 0,804.
The final ranking after five players have met each other:
1 Therese Klompenhouwer 12-1,414-7
2 Sruong Pheavy 9-1,149-6
3 Jinah Kim 6-0,.722-5
4 Shinyoung Lee 3-0,631-7
5 Jieun Han 0-0.804-6
Therese Klompenhouwer, extremely good in average