ANTALYA - The number 1 position in the world is no longer at risk for Dick Jaspers. The first appearance in the knock-outs at the World Cup in Antalya was incredibly impressive: two wins, 50-20 in 15, 50-11 in 13 innings. The sovereign Dutchman this Saturday, who was certainly not in favor of a faster shot clock from 40 to 30 seconds, even showed his super form at high speed in this first 2020 World Cup. The result over two matches: 100 points in 28 innings, averaging 3,571. Tomorrow, Sunday, Jaspers will meet Murat Naci Coklu, the only Turkish home player in the last four. Dani Sánchez meets the only Asian still in the field, Haeng Jik Kim. The semi final matches are at 11.00, Turkish time (Jaspers-Coklu) and at 13.00, Sánchez-Kim. Western Europe time 9.00 and 11.00.
The increase to 50 for the number of caroms has been received with cheers by top players. But every shot within thirty seconds, requires an even bigger focus and speed of action in the knock-outs of the world events. The averages in most of the matches went down, Sayginer, one of the fastest in the circuit, even had some starting problems.
Dick Jaspers commented after his two matches: ''We are all regularly stressed by time, caused by heavy defense and no confidence in the table. Then, the good flow doesn't come. I could make many high runs today, which is good for confidence. My opponents couldn't score, which of course helped me enormously. That Vietnamese, Ngo, played 2,600 yesterday, but couldn't answer all the way against me. And about the short time to shot: I showed before that I can handle a 30-seconds shot clock"
The best winner in the quarterfinals was not surprisingly Dick Jaspers with his 50-11 in 13 against Ngo, a demonstration of speed and high class as rarely shown by the Dutchman. Jaspers took the lead with 12 in the sixth and finished the match in the last four innings by 10, 10, 5 and 3. Murat Naci Coklu and TTT Nguyen remained far from that level, 50-45 in 36, but made it much more fascinating to the end. They matched until 15-15 after a 7 from Coklu and 9 from Nguyen, running up later to 44-43 in 33. The Turk, finally, forced the final gap and triumphed 50-45.
The other two matches for the quarter finals were decided in the final part in favor of Dani Sánchez and HaengJik Kim. The Spaniard, who already secured a place in the top 14 on the world ranking after this tournament, was pretty long looking at a deficit after Blomdahl's run of 14 at the start. The score only matches from the 20th inning (35-33), then 40-40, followed by a first attack of Sánchez to 46-41. When Blomdahl was no longer able to take advantage of his chances, Sánchez finished 50-42 in 27.
HaengJik Kim, the winner of the previous World Cup in Veghel, had a better final sprint than Nguyen Quoc Nguyen. The Vietnamese led around the break 23-12 and then even ran to 32-20, then facing the Korean coming back in the match with a 13 to 39-33 and in the final phase ran out with a run of six to 46-40. That was the knock-out for Nguyen: 50-42 in 28 innings.
Three players from the top 12 of the world rankings are in the semi-finals: Dick Jaspers, Haeng Jik Kim and Murat Naci Coklu. Dick Jaspers will certainly keep his lead on the UMB ranking now that Zanetti, Blomdahl, Merckx, Tasdemir, Tran, Sayginer, Sidhom and Myung Woo Cho from the top 10 have been eliminated.
The first masterpiece of the day came from Tran Thanh Tu Nguyen, a newcomer from Vietnam, 142nd on the world ranking with 10 points won at the World Cup in Ho Chi Minh. The 26-year-old player from the pre-rounds was second in his group with Semih Sayginer in the round prior to the knock-outs. On Saturday morning, he got his revenge on Sayginer, 50-33 in 31 innings, making the Turkish home players disappear from the tournament.
The Vietnamese, not known on the circuit before, is a bachelor from Can Tho city, with 1.5 million people the largest city in the Mekong Delta. He started playing billiards at the age of eight and could not hide his joy after the match. "I am so happy for the Vietnamese people, having beaten this world legend in billiards," he said modestly. ''I really have prepared well, technically and psychologically to fight these battles against the champions. I am very proud to have been able to realize this'', he said after his loss against Coklu.
Matches in the last sixteen:
The number one on the world ranking, Dick Jaspers, finished his match in an hour with Quyet Chien Tran, a feared Vietnamese on the circuit, whom he beat 50-20 in 15. The numbers two and three, Marco Zanetti and Torbjörn Blomdahl, met each other in the next day session. The Swede took the offensive throughout the whole game, scoring 10 in the 5th inning (18-6), followed by 14 in the 9th (37-12). Blomdahl played with fire for a while, when he unintentionally offered Zanetti the chance to come back missing four match balls at 49-36. The tough last shot, a hard played bank shot ended the match at 50-43 in 26 innings.
Dick Jaspers launched a whirling attack around the break in the match against Tran with runs of 4, 6, 3, 8, 10, meaning 31 caroms in five innings. After that, the Dutchman scored another 12 in his penultimate inning on the way to an outstanding victory (50-20 in 15).
The most striking result from that round with the best sixteen was TTT's win over Semih Sayginer, scoring his last wonderful 5 points to make 50-33 in 31 innings (1,612 against 1,064). Semih could not control the game for a moment and was defeated by Nguyen's final runs of 6, 4, 0, 4. The loss of Sayginer was noted after the break when he scored a 9 in the 27th inning, but before that, 3 and after that 4 misses towards the end.
Tayfun Tasdemir left this World Cup in the next session in a tactical battle with Nguyen Quoc Nguyen. The most temperamental of the Vietnamese ran away from his opponent after the 11-10 score in 9. Tasdemir lost the game in the innings after the break and was unable to hit back (50-37 in 23).
Murat Naci Coklu was the only Turkish player among the best eight beating one of the high ranked Koreans. Jae-Ho Cho was outplayed 50-42 in 32 in a match in which both scored a run of 9 and Coklu had the best final shot.
HaengJik Kim won the Korean clash with Myung-Woo Cho in a match in which the two youngsters were always close to each other. In sight of the finish line, at 41-40, the deciding phase was in favor of the last World Cup winner Kim, who left his rival at 50-42 in 28.
Dani Sánchez was only briefly caught by Jun Tae Kim around the 20th inning (30-27), in the last ten innings the Spaniard dominated as in the first part of the match: 50-38 in 32.
Dinh Nai Ngo dealt with Martin Horn after an equal score in the run-up to the final: 39-39 in 23 innings. The German then only scored once in eight innings (1 and 7 misses), when the Vietnamese scored eleven times for the win
