3-Cushion
ISTANBUL - The semifinals at the European championship will be played by the Greek Filippos Kasidokostas, the Turk Murat Naci Coklu, the German Martin Horn and the Dutchman Raimond Burgman.
The end of this day wasn't marked by high matches, the winners deserved to play the semis. Filippos Kasidokostas surpassed Dani Sánchez wit an excellent nine run in the thirteenth inning and at the end defeated his opponent 40-27 in eighteen (2.222).
Murat Naci Coklu grabbed the win in the Turkish clash against Tayfun Tasdemir, who has been the big star in two days of preliminaries, but he lost his way at this critical moment, 40-31 in 24.
Raimond Burgman is the most surprising of the four players in the semifinals. His best performance in a European championship ever was in 2000 in Madrid with a third place. Finally he has come as far as in that tournament, in the season where he performs on his best level ever.
The Dutchman defeated Savas Bulut in the quarterfinals 40-34 in 27 innings.
Dick Jaspers lost his title and eighty points in the world ranking in his match against Martin Horn, who gradually is an 'angstgegner' this year. The German beat him twice in the Agipi arena and now defeated the world champion in the semi finals 40-24 in 26 innings. Horn mainly shone with an excellent start: a run of eleven in the first inning.
Jaspers averaged exceptionally low for a player with his quality: 0.963.
The matches for tomorrow (10.00, Turkish time): Horn-Burgman, Kasidokostas-Coklu.
The semi finals and final are live on kozoom.com for Premium pass holders.