OSTRAVA - Dutch billiards player Joris van 't Zelfden (20) is the first player to qualify for the quarter-finals at the European junior three-cushion tournament in Ostrava. On the first day of the Longoni Next Gen Grand Prix in the Czech Republic, he won his three matches. That puts the Dutchman in the lead with six match points in his group of five players, the two best will continue. Tomorrow, Saturday, the Dutch player meets Turk Burak Hashas, who is also unbeaten.
With 4 match points, the Turk has a better average (1.282), mainly because he won a match over 25 points in 10 innings. Joris van 't Zelfden got his three wins in 82 innings and averaged 0.914. German Amir Ibraimov, in another group (D) has 4 match points out of two games and 0.943 on average, the same as Spaniard Daniel Sainz-Pardo with 0.943 average.
Dutch/Belgian Luca Philipoom came into action only once so far and won his match with 0.806 on average. Ibraimov achieved the best run so far with 9. The third Dutchman, only 12-year-old Joeri Wilkowski lost his matches in Group B with 0.343 on average and is the last of the 20 players playing in this Grand Prix.
The provisional standings in the four groups with one, two and three matches played per player:
Group A:
- Joris van 't Zelfden 3-6-0.914-5
- Burak Hashas 2-4-1,282-6
- Arturo Daniel Zotov 2-2-0.592-3
- Mio Svensson 2-0-0.447-3
- Paolo Turla 2-0-0.415-3
Group B:
- Daniel Sainz-Pardo 2-4-0.943-6
- Selahattin Ozkul 2-4-0.684-4
- Tangui Duriez 3-2-0.487-4
- Aristeidis Banis 2-2-0.420-4
- Joeri Wilkowski 3-0-0.343-3
Group C:
- Luca Philipoom 1-2-0.806-7
- Marcos Morales 1-2-0.675-3
- Toon Bollansee 2-200.611-4
- Charles Legendre 2-2-0.529-4
- Goncalo Santos 2-0-0.476-3
Group D:
- Amir Ibraimov 2-4-0.943-9
- Georgios Tsokantas 2-2-0.803-5
- Toni Garcia 1-2-0.543-3
- Nicolas Cermak 2-0-0.486-4
- Nathan Legendre 1-0-0.444-3.
Turkish Burak Hashas, best average after a match to 25 points in 10 innings