HALLE-ZOERSEL - The best juniors from the European three-cushion competition started in Zoersel one of the Next gen tournaments organized by the European federation CEB. The field consists of 24 under-21 players. The Dutch and Belgian juniors made an excellent start. Joris van ‘t Zelfden played the best match on the first match day, he is leader in his group. The same goes for Luca Philipoom. After 1 day, other Belgians are also among the contenders for a place in the knock-outs with 8 players.

Among the Belgians, Toon Bollansee, Yannick Peeters and Anthony Greffe also gathered 4 match points, the same as Luca Philipoom. Spaniard Marcos Morales leads the standings with 4 match points and 1.063 average ahead of Joris van ‘t Zelfden with 6 points (one match ahead) and 1.041. Luca Philipoom is tentatively fifth with 4 points and 0.581.

The tournament is played with 4 groups of 5 and 1 group of 4 from which the group winners and 3 best numbers 2 move on to the knock-outs with 8. The tournament venue is De Ploeg in Halle-Zoersel.

Best games until now came from Joris van ‘t Zelfden against Swede Mio Svensson with 25-6 in 19 (1.315 average) and further from Frenchman Quentin Watbled against Belgian Toon Bollansee with 25-22 in 21, Marcos Morales against Charles Legendre with 25-12 in 22 and Daniel Sainz-Pardo against Lorenzo Fiore with 25-8 in 23.

Today, Saturday, play continues in the groups. Joris van ‘t Zelfden played his last group match against Czech Nicolas Cermak in the early morning, won 25-11 in 24 and is already sure of placement. The Zeeuw player has six match points from his three matches in the group played with four. Luca Philipoom plays two more matches for placement in his group. The last one is against Belgian Thomas Verhulst, who is a substitute for one of the Turkish players.

13-year-old Dutchman Joeri Wilkowski is by far the youngest of the field of participants. Among others, he lost to two strong opponents: Bollansee and Turk Selahattin, who is among the contenders.

The standings on Saturday morning:

Group A:

1 Luca Philipoom (Netherlands) 4-0,581-5

2 Yannick Peeters (Belgium) 4-0.462-5

3 Joan Orbea (Spain) 2-0.405-4

4 Paolo Turla (Italy) 2-0.404-4

5 Thomas Verhulst (Belgium) 0-0.269-3

Group B:

1 Selahattin Özkul (Turkey) 4-0.847-4

2 Toon Bollansee (Belgium) 4-0.847-6

3 Arturo Zotov (Spain) 2-0.800-5

4 Quentin Watbled (France) 2-0.792-5

5 Joeri Wilkowski (Netherlands) 0-0.428-4

Group C:

1 Marcos Morales (Spain) 4-1.063-7

2 Gonçalo Santos (Portugal) 4-0.725-5

3 Amir Ibraimov (Germany) 4-0.724-6

4 Noah Rosier (Belgium) 0-0.491-4

5 Charles Legendre (France) 0-0.418-5

Group D:

1 Daniel Sainz-Pardo (Spain) 4-0.833-4

2 Tangui Duriez (France) 4-0.649-3

3 Anthony Greffe (Belgium) 4-0.477-4

4 Gilano Vloedmans (Netherlands) 0-0.413-4

5 Lorenzo Fiore (Italy) 0-0.272-

Group E:

1 Joris van ‘t Zelfden (Netherlands) 4-1.041-5

2 Buno Martinez (Spain) 2-0.741-4

3 Mio Svensson (Sweden) 2-0.553-3

4 Nicolas Cermak (Czech Republic) 0-0.484-3