3-Cushion
SUWON – How would Eddy Leppens feel after his disappointing match against Dick Jaspers? Defeated, deflated, bruised, flabbergasted? Like Usain Bolt in a sack-race.
Top player on the final day of qualifying, with an average of 3.384, anonymous and no-hope victim of Dick Jaspers in the first round of the main tournament. This is what can happen to a player under pressure, but did that not also apply to his opponent?
Dick Jaspers has dropped considerably in the ranking now that he has lost his World and European titles. He knows he must do well here, as he also is about to lose the points he scored in the semifinal in Matosinhos.
Jaspers dealt with the pressure much better, as the match showed. The Dutchman produced a straight sets victory: 3 - 0.
From the start, his opponent was unrecognisable from the player he was yesterday, and Jaspers was rock-solid, an average always around the 2 mark and a margin in the sets that frustrated his opponent: 15-5 in the 1st (4 innings), 15-8 in the 2nd (11 innings).
Could Leppens do nothing about it? Indeed, the Belgian sat in his chair as a broken man, watching Jaspers decide the match in the third set with 15-7 in eight innings (1.800/0.869).
Martin Horn in his contest with Adnan Yüksel needed an end rush that could give Andre Greipel the world title, this Sunday at the WC cycling in Limburg.
Horn started badly, lost the first set 15 – 14 (having had a 7 – 14 lead) and 15 – 6. Then the German machine fired up, with 15 – 10 in the 3d set, 15 – 4 in the 4th, and 15 – 13 in the decider, after Yüksel had recovered well in the last few innings.
It was not a sparkling performance (1300), but winning mattered more to the German, in view of his vulnerable position on the ranking list.
Jérémy Bury and Carlos Campino played a 5-setter where chances went back and forth. Bury made 1-0r, Campino, de Pan-American champion pegged back to 1 – 1 with a 15 - 6. The Frenchman took the lead again (15-4), but needed a decider after losing the 4th set 15-12. Bury won it, 15-7 in eight innings.
The marathon match of the day, played at a snail’s crawl, was between O Takeshima and Hyung Bum Hwang. The Japanese player, who was victorious over Jaspers and Kasidokostas at the WC in Porto, was not even close to that level. His opponent could have had a commanding 2 – 0 lead in sets but missed that chance. From 2-2 in sets, he finally won the decider 15-13.
The last cheers of the day must have been sultry Korean music to his ears.
Tomorrow’s eighth finals:
1st round:
Kang-Merckx
Funaki-Kasidokostas
Zanetti-Choi
Hyun-Suk Kim-Sánchez
2nd round:
Blomdahl-Ma
Um-Burgman
Bury-Hwang
Horn-Jaspers