Blomdahl in a leading role at the WC one cushion

SANT-BREVIN-LES-PINS - Torbjörn Blomdahl is on his way to become a Grand master in one cushion as well. The World championship in this discipline started with the second stage today (Saturday) with two final groups of four players. The Swede had the best start of the eight finalists with a win over Peter De Backer: 150-47 in six innings (highest run 90).

Frédéric Caudron needed a hard fight at the end of his match against Johann Petit, but when he trailed 109-106, the Belgian attacked to the finish and won 150-114 in 11 innings.

Jean Paul de Bruijn and Wolfgang Zenkner enjoyed the spectators in the Stade de l'Etoile with a stunning match which could go either way at the end. The reigning world champion Zenkner missed some points at a decisive moment, De Bruijn benefited and finished in 14 innings: 150-144.

Xavier Gretillat showed his current form in the match against Frenchman Bernard Villiers, who was one of the luminaries in the early stage of the preliminaries. The Swiss was 83-63 down after 11 innings, came back to 118-91 and had a brilliant final run of 59 to grab the win. The Frenchman came to 150-122 in the equalizer.

The next matches at 14.00:

Group E:
Caudron-Blomdahl
De Backer-Petit

Group F:
De Bruijn Gretillat
Zenkner-Villiers.