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Top guns are watching the prince's come back

09/12/2014

Published by frits bakker

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PORTO - On the day of the king’s drama, the prince was crowned to a sober, but very lucky winner. Seven players from the top twelve in the world (Caudron, Kasidokostas, Merckx, Zanetti, Bury, Tasdemir and Cho) missed the start of the World Cup in Porto and quickly were sent home. The return of the Turkish prince Semih Sayginer was not spectacular at all, but in the final rush, he defeated his young, inexperienced Spanish opponent David Martinez. 

The prodigal son, who returned after being away for seven years on the world stage, could not camouflage his lack of rhythm and feeling. He showed his amazing class now and then with his stunning technique and refined stroke. These moments, however, were too rare in the Portuguese arena, where the audience was looking forward to his comeback, as thousands of viewers did on Kozoom. 

The comeback-kid missed too many easy balls, which should be direct hits for a top player like him. He searched immediately after the match for an explanation: ,,I had some problems to adjust to the table, that’s why my start was bad. But I kept on playing the way I wanted. I am here first of all to enjoy the game. Tomorrow, it will be better, I think.’’

The real baptism of fire will be tomorrow (Saturday), when Semih will already find Torbjörn Blomdahl on his way. The Swede had a poor start as well tonight, playing the Vietnamese Duc Anh Chien Nguyen, but eventually Blomdahl won 40-31 in 29 innings. 

Sung-Won Choi advanced in the final evening session pretty easy, facing Glenn Hofman (40-33 in 29) and Dong Koong Kang won the Korean clash against Young Chull Kim 40-21 in 22. 

The penultimate round had a much higher level with Dick Jaspers-Pierre Soumagne and Eddy Leppens-Filippos Kasidokostas as highlights. The Dutchman forced a big margin and won 40-23 in twelve innings. Frenchman Soumagne coloured his match at the end with a run of sixteen, after he had made a thirteen and fourteen in one match the day before.

The Belgian Eddy Leppens miraculously escaped on Thursday, when he trailed 31-7 in his battle with Murat Tüzül and attacked with 12 to an amazing win.

That blistering final sprint he also showed against Filippos Kasidokostas today. ,,We first were in balance until 21-20 at the break,'' said Leppens later. When he suddenly sprang to live, the Belgian first made twelve and then closed the match with seven.

The best matches on the first day of the main event:

1 Dani Sánchez and Dick Jaspers, 3.333 

3 Eddy Leppens, 2.500 

4 Jérémy Bury, 2.250 

5 Peter Ceulemans, 2.222 

5 Murat Naci Coklu, 2.105 

6 Quyet Chien Tran, Roland Forthomme and Filippos Kasidokostas, 2.000. 

The matches for tomorrow, Saturday, in the eighteenth finals: 

10.00: 

Roland Forthomme-Nikos Polychronopoulos 

Murat Naci Coklu-Murat Tüzül 

Peter Ceulemans-Kyung-Roul Kim 

Dani Sánchez-Quoc Nguyen Nguyen 

11.30: 

Eddy Leppens-Quyet Chien Tran 

Dick Jaspers-Ryuuji Umeda 

Sung-Won Choi Dong-Koong Kang 

Semih Sayginer-Torbjörn Blomdahl.

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