3-Cushion
The two European players in the 4x10 Challenge final, Semih Sayginer and Torbjörn Blomdahl, have to chase the leaders Dinh Nai Ngo (Vietnam) and Sung-Won Choi (South Korea) on the second and decisive day. The Asian's margin is not unbridgeable, but the Vietnamese in particular seems in much better shape than his rivals in this second session of the Virtual winter series. Dinh Nai Ngo was brilliant with runs of 9, 10 and another 9 and scored 46 points in ten innings: 4,600 on average.
The Korean former world champion Choi has to overtake 12 points on the final day, he scored 34 points. The margin for Sayginer and Blomdahl is even 19 points. The Swede had a poor start with 9 in his first five innings, Sayginer was far down with 12 in 5 and also had a bad start of his second half. Thanks to a final run of 8, he equalized with Blomdahl, who started in the second part with 2 x 6, leading him to a final score of 27.
Dinh Nai Ngo, who already took a victory in the previous session, feels at home in the Challenge and showed that with three wonderful runs. Sung-Won Choi started his match very promising with 3-8-5-5-4, but scored 4 times 2 and closed with 1 in his last shot.
Semih Sayginer had an excuse afterwards that had to do with the high scoring Asians. ''I had to sit in my chair for a long time during these runs. That made me feel a bit cold.'' And with Semih's typical sence of humor: ''I'm not going to practice at the billiard at home tonight, but sitting in my chair for a few hours.''
The ranking after the first final round:
1 Dinh Nai Ngo 46 (9-3-2-10-6-2-9-1-2-2)
2 Sung-Won Choi 34 (3-8-5-5-4-2-2-2-2-1)
3 Semih Sayginer 27 (2-4-4-1-1-3-1-1-2-8)
4 Torbjörn Blomdahl 27 (2-1-1-1-4-6-6-1-4-1).
Dinh Nai Ngo, the leader after one day (down) and Sung-Won Choi, the runner-up