3-Cushion
The two front runners after the first day in the UMB Challenge, Torbjörn Blomdahl and Dinh Nai Ngo, again lead the two groups of four players after the second session. Semih Sayginer had an excellent start in his second outing and attacked the two leaders. The battle for four places in the final is still fully open with one round to play. Blomdahl had the best overall score and now gathered 81 points in 20 innings. Ngo is at 74 points, Sayginer at 70. The two highest averages today came from Sayginer and Blomdahl: 4,500 for the Turk, 4,300 for the Swede.
Therese Klompenhouwer, the only lady in this session, ran into a promising position and remains in line with Jérémy Bury, just like on the first day. The Dutch lady, just like Bury, scored 21 points in the first ten innings and like the French 48 after 20 innings. Blomdahl seems unapproachable in this group, Sung-Won Choi is in second place with 25 points down to the Swede, but 8 points ahead of Klompenhouwer and Bury.
The ranking after two days in Group A:
1 Torbjörn Blomdahl 81
2 Sung-Won Choi 56
3 Therese Klompenhouwer 48
4 Jérémy Bury 48.
Semih Sayginer's catch-up race in Group B was impressive with runs of 4, 8, 4, 7, 5 and 10: good for 38 points in six innings. The final chord in the last four innings (3-1-1-2) could not approach that high level. Dinh Nai Ngo recorded two runs at the table in his own billiard room: the 8 and 4 kept him on top of the ranking four points ahead on Sayginer.
The other Vietnamese, Nguyen, remained close enough without scoring over 5 in his runs. Dani Sánchez was unrecognizable, just like on the first day. The Spanish star player showed his bad mood with his body language and surely doesn't get used to the table in Andernos where he plays. Dani scored four times 'a one' and four times 'a two', supplemented by one 4 and one 0. He has to score 34 points more than Ngo and 30 more than Sayginer to reach the top 2 of the ranking on the third and last day.
The ranking in Group B after the second day:
1 Dinh Nai Ngo 74
2 Semih Sayginer 70
3 Nguyen Quoc Nguyen 60
4 Dani Sánchez 40.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, Group A will play at 13.00, Group B at 16.00 West European time. The top-two positions in both groups are at stake.
Dinh Nai Ngo, leading his group like on the first day of playing
Semih Sayginer, strong attack on the leading players