3-Cushion
ISTANBUL - Ten, fifteen seconds for the stroke, that's all he needs when Nikos Polychronopoulos plays three cushion. The 34-year old Greek loves the game and likes the speed and he didn't care at all about the new rules. On the opening day of the European championship in Istanbul, the rocket from Athens demonstrated his immense talent: he defeated the Dane Tonny Carlsen in his first game 30-7 in seven innings (4.285 average) and scored in his first inning a brilliant run of 23!
The form was there already for a few weeks. The man who runs a billiard center in Athens won a tournament in Salonika recently, with 128 participants, over 1.700 average and a high run of fifteen.
That was nothing compared to his start in the billiard room, where the European championship was launched under the new rules: 30 points in the preliminaries, a 40 seconds time frame.
Nikos Polychronopoulos felt like a dolphin in the Bosporus with this new system. ,,I always wanted that billiards would be faster and more attractive'', he said in recent tournaments. And of course it's not a guarantee to shine, because in his group, he also wil meet Torbjörn Blomdahl and Radek Novak. But after his top match, with 30 caroms in 7 innings, 'Poly' certainly can be seen as one of the outsiders in the list of title favorites.
Savas Bulut won the Turkish clash against Murat Naci Coklu in the third day session thanks to a final run of six (30-21 in 22). Torbjörn Blomdahl had a pretty slow start against Radek Novak, who took an advantage, but the Swede recovered in time with a run of ten and won 30-18 in 18 innings.
Eddy Merckx struggled with the table and his rhythm in the first part of his match and had not the started he wished. Nevertheless, the Belgian won his duel with Ramon Hamm: 30-25 in 25.