3-Cushion
The farewell to Dick Jaspers was impressive, but also a bit painful. The Dutch number one in the world in three cushion had to leave the tournament after the third day in the UMB Challenge and misses the final rounds with four players. Two Turks, Semiy Sayginer and Tayfun Tasdemir, Belgian Eddy Merckx and Swede Torbjörn Blomdahl play for the podium places on Saturday and Sunday. Dick Jaspers was beaten with the best match so far, the best average and the highest run shared with Sayginer. Dick Jaspers, Dani Sánchez, Myung-Woo Cho and Quyet Chien Tran are eliminated.
The group with Tasdemir, Sayginer, Jaspers and Sánchez, Group A, was the most feared stage, on which the four players showed wonderful, high level battles. Dick Jaspers finished his tournament with the best match so far against Tayfun Tasdemir: 50-27 in 9 innings with runs of 8, 7, 16 and 9 between the 4th and 7th inning. That brought the Dutchman to a total average of 3,942 over three games, but still he was eliminated by the two Turks: Sayginer (4 points, 3,684) and Tasdemir (4 points, 3,527).
Two losses in the first two days, against Sayginer and Sánchez, meant that Jaspers had no chance to qualify in his third match. "I didn't play well on the first day," Jaspers said later. ''And I could not make up for that in the next two games, despite the strong last match. I really wanted to say goodbye with a good performance, I'm happy that I could show that.''
Semih Sayginer and Dani Sánchez decided in a common match who would join Tasdemir to semi-finals. That game between two good friends was decided around the 10th inning, when Sayginer opened the attack on a score of 25-24 for the Spaniard with runs of 13, 6 and 4, to leed 47-37 after 11 innings. Two innings later, Sayginer finished as the winner and even became the group winner with four match points and 3,684. Sánchez after his second loss was eliminated.
The final ranking in Group A:
1 Semih Sayginer 4-3,684-16
2 Tayfun Tasdemir 4-3,527-11
3 Dick Jaspers 2-3,942-16
4 Dani Sánchez 2-3,414-8
Tayfun Tasdemir, the number two, with Semih Sayginer playing in the Max club in Istanbul
Torbjörn Blomdahl went on to the last four as the number two in Group B with Eddy Merckx. The Swedish world champion won his last-hope-match to pass Myung Woo Cho on average, but therefore had to beat the already qualified Merckx. That eventually happened in a flaming final sprint, in which Blomdahl thundered over his opponent with a one carom difference. The 14-run, bringing Blomdahl to 20-13 in the third inning, turned the match into his favor, but Merckx of course fought back nicely and barely missed the win. He made a nine, came to 46-45: Blomdahl finished with four, Merckx missed after four: 50-49.
Myung Woo Cho handed the last knockout to Quyet Chien Tran, 50-42 in 16. The Asian clash was dominated by the young Korean, who led 21-13 after 5 innings and 43-22 after ten innings. One inning later, Tran attacked with 9, but then had to bow to his young opponent, who could even afford to misses from the break three innings from the end.
The final ranking in Group B:
1 Eddy Merckx 4-3,725-12
2 Torbjörn Blomdahl 4-3,266-14
3 Myung-Woo Cho 4-3,155-8
4 Quyet Chien Tran 0-2,804-9.
Eddy Merckx, the group's best despite a thrilling loss to Blomdahl
Torbjörn Blomdahl the runner-up after a one-point win over Merckx
The matches for the semi-finals, Saturday:
12.00: Semih Sayginer-Torbjörn Blomdahl
17.00: Eddy Merckx-Tayfun Tasdemir