With the former winners, without the Agipi stars

SCHILTIGHEIM - The unpredictable top shape is in sport, the capricious are top players. The impossible has happened in the preliminary rounds of the Agipi Masters: the final of the tournament will be played without the stars of the most successful team in Europe and the world. Marco Zanetti was fighting in the final session of the qualifying as a provoked lion to avoid that the whole team would get killed. He perished for his home crowd in a match that got the end of a true thriller.

The fire was there, the fighting spirit as well, but Dick Jaspers and Marco Zanetti, two players with years of experience and so many international successes, were shaking on their legs in the decisive match.

The Dutchman even missed four match balls, his opponent three. Jaspers said later that the positions were difficult, bad and risky, but he realized that the tension played a high role in the misses. Marco Zanetti felt the same, although he once missed curious and very unhappy, when his cueball missed the carom on half a millimeter in the corner.

The match ended with a 'harmonica' of Jaspers. He could hardly show his joy due to the high pressure. The equalizer of Zanetti was a formality, he made the point showing the crowd a huge disappointment.

The four players from the best team in Europe and the world, Frédéric Caudron, Marco Zanetti, Jérémy Bury and Jean-Christoph Roux thusly are missing when at 22, 23, 24 and 25 March the final round is played. The previous winners (Dick Jaspers twice, once Torbjörn Blomdahl and once Sung-Won Choi) have signed up.

Martin Horn won his group in the qualification weekend before Dick Jaspers: the German was undefeated with 2.000 average, Jaspers finished with two points less and 2.140, the highest average of the preliminaries.

Filipos Kasidokostas won the other group with eight points and 1.724 before Torbjörn Blomdahl with six points and 1.698.

Zanetti and Tasdemir ended up in the most unfortunate place third, Tasdemir 1.786 average, Zanetti (two draws) 1.745.

Martin Horn played the highest run of sixteen.

The format for the quarter finals:
Dani Sánchez-Kyung-Roul Kim
Sung-Won Choi, Eddy Merckx
Filipos Kasidokostas-Torbjörn Blomdahl
Martin Horn-Dick Jaspers.

The top six of the money makers in the preliminaries:
Sung-Won Choi 6200 euro
Martin Horn 5700
Kyung-Roul Kim and Torbjörn Blomdahl 5200
Dick Jaspers 5075
Lutfi cenet 4525.