3-Cushion
NEW YORK - Raymond Ceulemans closed the day with two matches on high level: he first defeated Eddy Leppens 40-33 in 20 and in his last group match Julian Torres 40-18 in 16. Therefore he finished as second in the group behind Eddy Merckx, but ahead of Eddy Leppens.
The world champion and the all time phenomenon advance to the last eight. Eddy Leppens, who still averaged 2.318 before his last match, has been send home. Two defeats in the final laps were killing for the best player of the first days. He reacted very disappointed: ,,I still have the best average of all players. What can I do: play three average in every match? This is very frustrating, you may know that.''
He lost the decisive match against Merckx, who led the entire match and finished on 31-22 with a run of nine.
Torbjörn Blomdahl suffered his first defeat against Gerhard Kostistanski but he could afford this misstep. The Swede meets Hugo Patino tomorrow and will be in the final round with a win.
Who will come along with him? Almost certainly Kostistanski, who plays against Brian Yi in his last match.
Semih Sayginer fought for his last chance against Luis Aveiga and managed to win. The Turk defeated his opponent 40-20 in 25 innings, but needs another win against Miguel Torres in the last round.
Pedro Piedrabuena, who took a convincing win again, now against Javier Teran (40-13 in fourteen, with another run of twelve), plays a crucial role in the final round against Miguel Torres, who gathered the maximum eight match points.
For his last match against Sang Jin Lee, Torres needed 37 innings (40-31).
Sayginer and Piedrabuena are two and three in this group with six match points.