ISTANBUL - The champion team of Bahcelievler has already taken the spotlights with an impressive start at the European Cup for club teams. The Turkish title holder defeated FC Porto 7-1 and therefor put an important step towards the group win. Today's Portuguese opponent defeated the third team in the group, BK Gröndal on the first day, 7-1. Tayfun Tasdemir, Lütfi Cenet, Murat Naci Coklu and Adnan Yüksel recorded a great team average (2.133) in their opening match. The best match was played by Adnan Yüksel, who appeared with a new look at the table. The player at the fourth position of the team defeated Rui Costa and finished with ten: 40-15 in 14 innings (2.857).
The battle between the two captains, Tayfun Tasdemir and Torbjörn Blomdahl was decided in an early part: after seven innings (and a run of ten) Tasdemir fired up the match with a solid 18-1 on the scoreboard. The Swede tried a late attack after the 25-4 break, but couldn't threaten his opponent at the end: 40-27 in 19. ,,This is really a great start for the team'', Tasdemir noted, when he took a look on the overall score and quickly had calculated the team average. And about his match against Torbjörn, he concluded with a friendly smile: ,,He got very bad positions at the start of the match, but I helped him a bit with that.''
Two matches in the first encounter of the day had an exciting closure. Lütfi Cenet played a draw against Dani Sánchez and Murat Naci Coklu won by only one carom against Joao Ferreira. Dani Sánchez led against Cenet 34-26 when the Turkish number two seemed to cross the finish line with a fantastic run. But he missed his fourteenth and final point and gave Sánchez two more chances in sight of the finish (39-34). The Spaniard came back with four (39-38), Cenet made his last and Sánchez scored the equalizer: 40-40 in nineteen).
Tayfun Tasdemir is amusing himself in the match against Torbjörn Blomdahl
The Portuguese Joao Ferreira also shone with an almost decisive run in his match against Murat Naci Coklu, in which the Turk ran away to a comfortable lead after the break. The climax was exciting: the youthful Ferreira, who showed the audience that he has made great progress, almost closed the match, made nine, but missed his last. Coklu took his chance and could make the match ball.
Bahcelievler (in English: houses with gardens) is close to the group win after its 7-1 victory. That is important for their next match, to avoid the other group winner in the semi-finals.
The opponent in the semi-finals will probably be Dallinga/AEJ (the other likely winner) or Andernos: these teams meet this afternoon, Saturday, at 14.00.
Lütfi Cenet and Dani Sánchez played a thrilling match.