3-Cushion
NEW YORK - The little, eleven year old Luca Tomassetti from Pittsburgh stole the show on the first days of the Verhoeven Open in New York. Obviously he has no chance to qualify for the final rounds (five losses), but the Americans are hoping that the young boy can grow out to the new Sang Chun Lee for the future.
The Turkish favorite Tayfun Tasdemir made the best impression in the first rounds with ten groups of seven players with matches against Juan Uribe (25-3) and Christ Bartzos (25-9) in fifteen and seven innings. The match in seven innings (3.571) was the best of 150 games so far. Haacke-Sörensen, Kostistanski and Salazar signed up for the highest run: 11.
Huberney Catano, Miguel Torres, Murat Naci Coklu and Claus Foge remained undefeated in the first four and rounds: Catano with 1.524 average, Coklu 1.449. Catano leads his group ahead of Sang Jin Lee and Julian Torres, both with four wins. Miguel Torres played his five winning matches with 1.316 average.
Eddy Merckx lost in his group to Lars Dunch, who is the leader with ten out of five and 1.238. The Belgian has the best average 1.783 and played the best match beating Jan Berggren in 6 innings (4.167).
Murat Naci Coklu leads ahead of Gerhard Kostistandski, who made a better performance in average: 1.556 Kostistanski, 1.524 Coklu. Clause Foge played his winning machtes with 0.759. Hugo Patino is on one in Group G with ten out of five and 1.116 ahead of Nalle Ollson with four match points and 1.116.
Sameh Sidhom suffered an unexpected defeat in Group E facing Jacob Haack Sorensen, who lost his two other matches against Foge and Villamarez.
Alexander Salazar lost to Song Lim, who won his first three matches: both or on the lead now, Salazar with 1.425, Lim has 0.899. Kyung-Roul Kim won four matches and lost to Jim Watson 25-24 in 25 innings. The Korean has 1.192 average. Ly The Vin is unbeaten in Group I with 1.543, William Oh is the number two with 1.584. He lost to Vin 25-22 in 16.
Tayfun Tasdemir leads his group with ten out of five, averaging 1.712. Second in the group is Harry Pena with eight out of 5. Tasdemir defeated Pena 25-7 in 11.
The third day starts with the last group matches, including Sidhom-Foge, Villegas-Song Lim, Villamarez-Foge, Patino-Nalle Olsson, Bo Gustafsson-Oh.
Two players from each group of seven qualify for the final stage with two third best, two players from the tombola and the seeded players Caudron, Blomdahl, Jaspers and Ceulemans.
The main tournament starts on friday with 4 groups of 7 players, from which the two players in each group qualify for the quarter finals.