3-Cushion
LOMMEL - The 77-year-old Raymond Ceulemans is the living proof of course, that billiard players can perform on high level into old age. Martin Spoormans is just a shadow of the all times champion with his palmares, but on his very best days, in a wonderful setting, the 64-year-old player is renowned for his stunt matches against world class players. The current world champion, Frédéric Caudron, was part of such a Spoormans show in the last round of the Superprestig in Lommel. He was defeated by the billiard player who is a master in many disciplines, spending his spare time playing golf, who was a local councillor in his younger years and a juicy storyteller.
Martin Spoormans flaunted with a victory over the number one in the world ranking 40-30 (25) and coloured his day in his well known style: some marvelous scores, attracting the audience with his mimicry, attentive in defense, a pair of kisses and flukes, which he is known for and in awe of his illustrious opponent.
The gray curly Salty dog enjoyed it, raised his hand occasionally to the audience and his opponent to apologize, showed his smile and advanced in the meantime for the final rounds.
He did it unbeaten, in the first match with a win over Peter Ceulemans (40-34 in 22) than against Caudron and in his last encounter vs Steven van Acker: 40-33 in 33, with an overall average of 1.500 exactly. Caudron, with four match points, finished 1.746. He made a huge impression, Martin Spoormans, especially with his match against Frédéric Caudron: the underdog had a much better start than his famous opponent (24-9), who suffered a little hick-up after his whirlwind start against Steven van Acker.
Spoormans ran out, when the gap quickly opened up to 17 points (31-14) and, after a short revival of Caudron with 7, took victory with 40-30.
What a surprise again on the final day of the preliminaries, where Peter Ceulemans and Steven van Acker were left on one match point, far behind the leaders: they played a draw against each other in 29 innings.
The three sessions gave Spoormans and Caudron access to the finals. Caudron survived easily after his little slip against Spoormans when the road to the finish was a bit bumpy. He first defeated Steven van Acker in the best match of the preliminaries (40-11 in 13, run 12, average 3.077) and concluded the evening with a win over Peter Ceulemans 40-32 in 25.
The result is that Eddy Merckx was the best over four days ahead of Peter De Backer, Roland Forthomme and Martin Spoormans.
The full schedule for the quarterfinals tonight (Friday):
19.00: Merckx-De Groof
De Backer Caudron
21.00: Forthomme-Leppens
Spoormans-Daniels
The eight players for the finals with match points, average and runs:
1 Eddy Merckx 6-1.739-14
2 Martin Spoormans 6-1.500-9
3 Peter De Backer 6-1.481-6
4 Roland Forthomme 6-1.463-8
5 Eddy Leppens 4-1.790-9
6 Frédéric Caudron 4-1.746-12
7 Ronny Daniels 4-1.594-8
8 Frank de Groof 4-1.432-10.