ZUNDERT - Two Belgian top players, who performed in their own country with averages over two throughout the year, have colored the prelims of the Dutch cup final on the same level. Eddy Merckx won his match against Raimond Burgman 3-0 this afternoon (3.000 average, 2.014 overall) and qualified glorious with TOVV.nl/MCR for the final rounds.
Frédéric Caudron was the other star player as captain of the Dallinga/Frans Bevers team, that ended as the winner in the other group.
Tonight (Saturday) the players on table three and four meet in the semi-finalis, tomorrow afternoon the matches are decided by the numbers one and two in the teams.
Dallinga/Frans Bevers starts against A1 Biljarts at 20.30, TOVV.nl/MCR meets Holland Mineraal at the same time.
The warm-up between TOVV and A1 in the last preliminary match was won by TOVV 3-0 and with an impressive team average (1.822 thanks to Eddy Merckx (3.000), Frans van Kuyk (1.730), Dave Christiani (1.370) and Richard Bitalis (1.681).
Eddy Merckx played an amazing match: the world champion played his first set with 8, 0 and 7 in three innings and started his third with a 9 run.
A1 Biljarts shows up without Dion Nelin in the final rounds. The Danish player is performing in Germany, like Stefan Galla, who misses the matches with Holland Mineraal.
The matches tonight:
Dallinga-A1 Biljarts
Glenn Hoffman-Addy Wienk
Jean Paul de Bruijn-Martien van der Spoel.
TOVV-Holland Mineral
Dave Christiani-Jelle Pijl
Richard Bitalis-Stefan Spilleman.