3-Cushion
WONJU - The Dutch player Dick Jaspers has already secured his place in the last final round with eight players after his victories over Vietnamese Tran and Turk Semih Sayginer in today's (Monday's) matches for the World 3-Cushion Grand Prix. The Dutchman is unbeaten after five matches and only faces Eddy Merckx (tomorrow, Tuesday) and Tayfun Tasdemir (Wednesday) in the last matches for his group. His position in the second round of the Grand Prix is unassailable. Jaspers shone again today against Sayginer with a run of 19, following the 20 he made earlier in the tournament. That gives him the best run in the event together with Eddy Merckx. With an average of 3,027 in five matches, Jaspers is also by far the best on average.
From the two groups in the Grand Prix, eight players remain (the best four from each group) who will play for the main prize of 73,000 euros. Torbjörn Blomdahl is the leader in the other group ahead of Murat Naci Coklu. Dick Jaspers leads his group followed by Semih Sayginer. Blomdahl also will advance to next round. The Swede defeated Jun Tae Kim 2-1 and Nikos Polychronopoulos 2-0 today. Eddy Merckx is still in the second part of the rankings, but a good finish could push him up further. The same goes for the Turks Tasdemir and Cenet and Polychronpoulos.
Jaspers first launched himself against Quyet Chien Tran with 2-0 today (22-6 in 8, 22-6 in 6, 3,142 on average, run of 10). Then, the match between the numbers one and two in Group A was played. Jaspers was 15-11 down in 7 for the first set against Sayginer. He then won the second set 24-8 in 5 (thanks to a 19-runner) and outclassed Sayginer in the third set 17-1 in 6 innings.
The battle for the next spots to follow Jaspers and Sayginer (15 and 10 match points) are reach the apotheosis in the last three rounds. Quyet Chien Tran is in the best position after his 2-0 victory in the last match over Merckx. Nguyen Quoc Nguyen won 2-1 against Tayfun Tasdemir and is the number four ranked player two points ahead of Cenet and Merckx. The Belgian already played five matches, Cenet one match less.
Torbjörn Blomdahl has a total of 13 match points out of 5 matches and is topping ahead of Murat Naci Coklu, the number two, with 9 points out of 4 matches. Jun Tae Kim also gathered 9 points with one more match played. The next are Hwang, Heo and Cha. Coklu played one match today and won the important encounter with Heo 2-1 (averages 2,227 for Heo, 1,809 for Coklu. The Turkish player won the second set 27-10.
Blomdahl and Polychronopoulos played a very mediocre match with averages of 1,291 and 1,000. Polychronopoulos is facing a tough mission in his last two matches to still reach the top four.
The rankings with two days to go:
Group A:
1 Dick Jaspers 5-15-3,027-19
2 Semih Sayginer 5-10-2,285-15
3 Quyet Chien Tran 5-7-1,938-13
4 Nguyen Quoc Nguyen 4-6-1,676-12
5 Lütfi Cenet 4-4-1,816-23
6 Eddy Merckx 5-4-1,545-7
7 Tayfun Tasdemir 4-3-1,560-10
8 Won Young Choi 4-3-1,400-7.
Group B:
1 Torbjörn Blomdahl 5-13-1,963-17
2 Murat Naci Coklu 4-9-2,264-14
3 Jun Tae Kim 5-9-1,780-16
4 Bong Joo Hwang 4-7-1,807-11
5 Jung Han Heo 4-6-2,111-11
6 Myong Jong Cha 4-3-1,762-12
7 Nikos Polychronopoulos 5-3-1,474-7
8 Chang Hoon Seo 5-3-1,384-9.
The loser groups with two times eight players are led by Dani Sánchez and Sameh Sidhom. The Spaniard is unbeaten with 15 out of 5, the Egyptian lost one of his five matches. Choong Bok Lee and Roland Forthomme are the runners-up. The best four of the two groups play for places 17 to 24 in the final ranking, the last four of the two groups are out. Therese Klompenhouwer is in sixth place in Sánchez's group with 4 match points out of 3 (one win, one draw) and a 1,114 on average.
Semih Sayginer, beaten by Dick Jsspers and comfortable in second position
Torbjörn, the world champion, on his way to qualify as the leader in his group
Murat Naci Coklu, runner-up with one match more to play than Blomdahl