SEOUL - The world champion Dick Jaspers is going up and down in the Masters tournaments. In the last of 2018, the Dutchman came out of the fight as the glorious winner. This time, in the first of 2019, he needs a second chance to stay in the tournament. In the Survival 3C Masters in Seoul, with the best ranked 24 players, Jaspers had an unusually bad start. He gets another chance to survive on Friday. Dani Sánchez was the best winner on the first day.
"This is a very dangerous game'', Jaspers commented after winning the final in Guri at the end of last year with 2.692 of average in the four-man-battle with Quyet Chien Tran, Semih Sayginer and Chi Yeon Cho. His words came true when he rarely showed his high class in the last session of the opening day this Friday and never was among the best in his group. Murat Naci Coklu was ultimately the winner ahead of Hyung Kon Kim.
Dani Sánchez (117 points, 2.928 average), Semih Sayginer (112, 2.642), Nguyen Quoc Nguyen (110, 2.642), Murat Naci Coklu (110, 2.642), Frédéric Caudron (98, 2.058) and Myung-Woo Cho (78, 1.750) were the group winners using the format of four players at the table over two sessions of 45 minutes. Caudron shone with the best run of 16.
Dani Sánchez was the first winner of the day with a quick run of 10, a solid average, 2.928, and a big lead over Nikos Polychronopoulos, who finished second followed by Quyet Chien Tran and Jae-Ho Cho. Semih Sayginer also finished with a score of over a hundred and was the frontrunner ahead of Sung-Won Choi. Nguyen Quoc Nguyen set the tone in the group in which the number two came out in the last inning. Eddy Leppens finished with eight, but was overtaken by one carom from Dong-Koong Kang in his last inning.
Myung-Woo Cho was the winner in his group ahead of Eddy Merckx, who scored a ten at the start of the second part. Frédéric Caudron attacked with a 16 and won his group ahead of Lütfi Cenet. Murat Naci Coklu topped the two strong Koreans in his group with Dick Jaspers.
The second chance matches will bring a lot of champions in the arena, tomorrow: not only Dick Jaspers, also Torbjörn Blomdahl, Marco Zanetti, HaengJik Kim, Quyet Chien Tran and the last World Cup winner Tayfun Tasdemir could not qualify directly for the quarters. The most striking was Jaspers with his low score of 20 points and 1.166, also Blomdahl (12, 0.857), Tasdemir (18, 0.882) and Zanetti (10, 0.857) were far below their level.
Semih Sayginer topped his group with Sung-Won Choi, Jérémy Bury and Jae-Ho Cho
Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, winner ahead of Dong-Koong Kang, Eddy Leppens and Marco Zanetti
Myung-Woo Cho, number one in his group followed by Eddy Merckx, Sameh Sidhom and Dinh Nai Ngo
Frédéric Caudron, group winner with a run of 16 followed by Lütfi Cenet, Jung-Han Heo and Tayfun Tasdemir
Murat Naci Coklu, the best by far in his flight, ahead of Hyung Kon Kim, HaengJik Kim and Dick Jaspers.