3-Cushion
The final round of the Agipi Masters 2011 will be played with two Belgians, one Frenchman, one Korean, one Italian, one Dutchman, one Spanish and one Greek. The matches are played with eight in a knock-out system over fifty caroms. Eddy Merckx and Frédéric Caudron shared themselves as the last two players among the mixed group of finalists tonight. Caudron defeated Nikos Polychronopoulos, on the other table Merckx and Torbjörn Blomdahl played a draw. That means for Blomdahl the end of this edition. The Swede, who won the first Agipi Masters, now didn't succeed to reach the finals.
Dick Jaspers saved his qualification by a spectacular victory over Jérémy Bury on the last day. The Dutchman balanced on a thin wire until, but under great stress he played a record match in this arena. Filipos Kasidokostas, Sung-Won Choi, Javier Palazón and Marco Zanetti were the winners in the previous round of qualifying, Jaspers, Merckx, Caudron and Bury closed the last session to come to the eight finalists on 24, 25, 26 and 27 of March. They will compete for the coveted trophy.
The matches for the quarter finals tonight were announced by Jonathan Montel and Jean Jacques Gangloff, the eminent organizers. The collision between the top players guarantee four days of billiard on the very highest level. Dick Jaspers plays on the first day against Filipos Kasidokostas, Frédéric Caudron meets Marco Zanetti, both players from the renowned Agipi team, Jérémy Bury faces the young Spaniard Javier Palazón and Eddy Merckx will meet Sung-Won Choi.
Frédéric still had to fight tonight to survive, being threated on the other table by Blomdahl, but with a final sprint of 3, 7 and 7 in his last three innings the Belgian shared himself among the cream of three cushion.
Eddy Merckx, already accounted for three victories, left one point in his last match, because Blomdahl equalized with four points to 50-50.
The Korean Jung Han Heo, who was eliminated by the performance of Jaspers against Bury this afternoon, was the player who earned the most prize money. He makes the journey home with 5750 euros in the luggage. Sung-Won Choi is a close second with 4850 euros, Jérémy Bury and Dick Jaspers both earned 4700 and Javier Palazón 4200 euros.
Jérémy Bury finished from the twenty players in these rounds with the highest average. The Frenchman played a marvellous 2.394, the best in his carreer so far. Dick Jaspers was second with 2.312, Marco Zanetti won the previous round with 2.250, Eddy Merckx ended with 2.041 and Filipos Kasidokostas with 2.031.
Jérôme Barbeillon, who missed the final rounds, and Javier Palazón made the highest run of 19 in the preliminaries.